The Black Star
by EwokPoet
Summary: 17 y.o. Sacorrian Human Doria Vorr spends time arguing with her mother Maris, misjudges her friends and only confides in her Drall neighbour Gredda. An error in her university application, a talkative government official, Gredda's sudden departure and an unexpected friendship with offworlders will lead Doria far away from the familiar routine of Sacorrian life and beyond.
1. Ambitions

**Saccorata, Sacorria, fifth month of 3ABY/22 AE**

"My name? Doria Vorr. Profession I studied for? Agricultural technician. Biggest wish? To vacation on Vagran again someday...

...Where do I see myself in ten years? I don't know. Ambitions? I never had them."

She feared that they could assume from her facial expressions that she was lying.

In reality, it was not that simple. To a certain extent, she did not lie. The brutal, pervasive truth is that she would often discover her ambitions long after whatever goal she was to pursue had long slipped out of her hands. In most cases, those goals would never find their way back to her, and they seemed normal to everybody else. In her young mind, the explanation, albeit abstract, was clear - whatever the fruits hanging way too high above were, the others must have really wanted them, they dedicated everything, every single droplet of matter to getting them.

Her graduation speech wasn't cut short by applause. It took about half a minute of awkward silence before Gredda started clapping her tiny furry hands from the front row. A couple of others shrugged and clapped along. They probably assumed that the Drall was hired to do this. Doria Vorr, relieved that she somehow didn't pay the high price of being honest, returned to the group of a couple of dozens of other students, all wearing the same long-sleeved red tunics and blue trousers and skirts.

"Dear guests, these were all thirty graduates of the First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata. The delegate of Their Majesties extends her warmest wishes to these promising young individuals and hopes that they all will serve our planet and contribute to our progress the best way they can."

As the group was heading to the large tables nearly crumbling under the weight of food, the Selonian and Drall students were tucking their graduation clothes away. It was a warm day and the refreshment was gone very fast, prompting a group of waiter droids to restock.

Maris Vorr was not attending her daughter's graduation. They had a minor quarrel day earlier and thus were not speaking for what must have been the fifth time that month. Gredda, however, would not have missed it for anything in the world. The blonde-brownish Drall, wearing a black star pendant around her neck, had more patience than ten humans together and she would forgive Doria her shortcomings almost immediately. Furthermore, she did not have the same criteria for what a shortcoming was as mrs. Vorr did.

"You survived it. Congratulations, my friend!" she waved her short arms. Doria kneeled and hugged her.

"Thank you, Gredda. If anybody knows how unenthusiastic I was about this joke of a ceremony, it's got to be you."

"Shusssh! You never know who might be listening."

"They can always ask what I am so unenthusiastic about if they care…and I am as bemused by what is inevitably going to happen tonight. They're all going to get piss drunk and convince themselves they're free, desirable and whatever else is common for…you know, young people."

"And you…?"

"I hate whatever young people like!" the Human blurted out, taking a large bite of a grain bar covered in what looked nothing like real fruit.

"So, are you coming to the banquet Duchess Branna will be holding for the five of graduates from our clan? Tomorrow evening at seven."

"I would not miss that for anything in the world. And tonight, I'm going to tuck myself in, listen to some good jizz and sleep…in no particular order."

The two friends said goodbye to each other, as Gredda noticed the aforementioned Drall students and went to congratulate them. Doria continued in the direction of her home on the outskirts of Saccorata. The afternoon was more or less pleasant and she was rethinking her decision to have an early night, as the idea of staying up at least until the sun actually goes down suddenly seemed appealling.

"Doria! Wait up!"

That was Tendra Risant's voice. She increased the pace, pretending not to have heard anything, until a luxurious, bulky open-top groundcar stopped right next to her.

"I said wait up. Where you are going?"

"Where there are no people like you." she blurted sotto voce, then turned around, smiled and responded: "Home, to show mom this incredible piece of flimsi we just got."

"Aren't you going to the party?"

"Not feeling like it. Maybe in, say…8 years from now? I'm a busy person, you know?"

She turned again and was about to leave, when Tendra spoke again.

"I guess you'll be free for other things, though? I thought you could teach me to 'sheet one of these days."

"Excuse me..? I may be closer to poor than rich, but I don't clean bloody refreshers!"

"HoloSheet, I bought a licenced copy from DOBY. I need to make myself look a tiny bit thinner in my application holo for the Dorthus Tal University."

"Aaah, HoloShed!" Doria snapped her fingers. She was confused so as to why would somebody like Tendra need to take an entrance exam either way, given how powerful her family was and that they could, perhaps, bribe anybody they wanted to.

"So?"

"Yes, I can help you. Ping me on HoloNet early next week or something. Now I really have to go."

"Okay…you may want to watch out for those…"

Tendra and her two male companions stood still as their classmate was taking a shortcut through a dust corn field.

"…grain flies."

The socialite had no idea what was going on. Her two friends, however, started giving their own points of view as soon as the red graduation robe disappeared among the long stalks.

"That disgusting little rodent is filling Doria's head with those...outlandish concepts of theirs. A female ruling the Galaxy someday, some unicorn types of things having built the Corellian system, the outside world being in the middle of a devastating, all-around war, the Triad not having any powers at the moment..."

"I don't think it's the Dralls. She's unhinged to begin with."

"You are both ridiculous. Have you ever been lonely? Say, how many 'right' people can we hang out with and how many years left of freedom do we have until we're stuck in Dorthus Tal's administration jobs and elite parties, forever?"

"Tendra …wake up and smell the caf. You are living a strange fantasy and it's time to cut it out. Haven't these four years in Saccorata with all of the grassroots scum taught you anything? They don't like us, they don't want to mingle and they're all crazy. You just happen to be desperate to befriend the craziest among them."

…

"Vorr E, Doria. Honors: none." Maris was shaking her head, looking at the diploma bearing the sharp, red, star-shaped logo of the Institute.

"No honors, but I did graduate with the average of 100%. For honors, you'd have to be very serv..."

"Your father was right. Had you dedicated as much time to studying as you did to having your head in the clouds, you would have been in Dorthus Tall by now, working in administration."

Nobody asked her if she wanted such a thing in the first place. But the next sentence angered her further.

"And you could have married a government official."

"Yes, government...that exists. And it's always been a dream of mine to marry young and die of ennui. Sure, mom."

Had this been somebody from her circle of not-really-friends-to-begin-with, they would have raised their eyebrows at the claim that the government does not exist, and had that been Gredda, she would have warned her not to say such things out loud. But this was mom, the one who never seemed to have listened to anybody other than herself, as if she was admiring the sound of her own, dramatic, high-pitched voice.

"This way, you may not end up being anything more than somebody repelling the grain flies off the rear of a huge, price-winning beast of burden."

"Don't they have droids for such purpose? The A-55 ones?"

"Sure, A-55…wait a moment, I am not falling for that! Doria, you're being a complete immature youngling again. Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother. Ever since your father died, I practically have no reason to live."

Maris broke. Her daughter tried to comfort her, but she pushed her away.

"Get out of my sight. NOW!"

Doria went to her room, pulled down the blinds, kicked off her shoes, changed into a mismatching tracksuit pants and a T-shirt and climbed up in the bunk bed. She pulled out the datapad, activated an illegal slicer program for bypassing the government surveillance and was about to spend the rest of the day reading up on a couple more obscure Outer Rim planets. Everything was better than crying herself out to sleep and replaying the entire day; which – to her – seemed more brutal than any holovid one could come across among the shelves in the heavily controlled rental across the field from the Vorrs' home.

The HoloNet was down again. Recently, it had been happening so often that she lost count. She could have got up out of the bed and gone to the living room, where her mother was probably watching some cheesy holocomedy and laughing out loud as if she wasn't claiming her life had no purpose come half an hour ago. She could have, but she didn't feel like having another argument.

**Dorthus Tal City, Dorthus Tal Island, Sacorria, a week later**

Code:Blue was bored at work. Getting used to sitting in the office all day and wearing a suit instead of his beloved limmie jersey was something he was taking hard. He was willing to help people, but getting used to the real world and realising that, despite his idealistic views of it, it might have been worse than he ever thought, was taking some time. The truth was slowing him down and, sometimes, coming closer to wiping off the broad smile off his face, or at least reducing it to a stiff-teethed spasm. This time, he spent the whole day stamping requests, pleas and similar documents. And his former co-star, now a fellow administrative, was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you sleeping at work again, Crybaby?" somebody spoke right into his ear, with the last word yelled out loud. Blue squeaked, as if the words were spoken through a loudhailer. Code: Red was standing at the window, pointing to the sky outside, as if something was going on.

"Heh, last time I checked, you were a human representative, not a Drall. You sure there's no Drall folk in your family lineage? That one of your grandmothers…"

"Very funny, Red."

"Lighten up, Crybaby, lighten up! It's a nice day and we have only fifteen minutes left. Your family is taking a vacation, so why wouldn't you take your chances for once and hit a bar with me? We don't play limmie no more, we don't have to be sober...I swore to all possible deities of all possible species that someday I'll get you drunk on some aged Sacorrian whiskey!"

Blue was offended. "Who do you think I am? No, no and for the last time, no. I sent Dani and the younglings on a vacation so I could get as much work done as possible and then, eventually join them at the seaside. Also, we're not done for the day, by any means. We have to go through the list of students from the FAIS applying for scholarship and there are some artists needing an approval to exhibit their work on our planet."

Red was not too keen on getting work done, but he sat down.

"Are there any hot female students?" he gacked the datapad and started searching through data, "Oh, poodoo, this one is a Selonian, yet wearing something that looks like a petticoat. My eyes! I need a new pair of eyes. Hmmm…Tendra Risant. A local who, for some odd reason, studied at the FAIS. I like her hair. But something seems to be wrong with her body!"

"Red! How dare you say that, the Gods have made everything and everybody beautiful!"

"This time it's not my pickiness. Look at the holo before you assume that I'm a nerf herder, won't you?"

Blue reluctantly gave a second look to the flickering holoimage of a young woman with strawberry blonde hair. Her arms seemed unnaturally thin, same for her legs.

"I can see what you mean right now. She could, however, be a model. Models have…arms…and legs."

"I truly don't understand you sometimes. The part I fail to understand most is how you managed to get married and father three children."

Blue sighed. Every other day at the limmie field back in the days looked like this. Nothing changed since they got hired. His partner in crime was abusive from day one. He quietly continued reading the documents for the day, doing the best he knew to be a proper, hard-working Sacorrian. For the next twenty minutes, as he was typing on his datapad, Red was starring through the window, occasionally catcalling the women passing by, knowing that they could not spot him. The main government building was fifty stories tall and all the windows looked identical.

"This is it. I am bored. See you after the holidays, Crybaby!"

"How about you help me with this one? A pronk band named Dee…"

Red had already slammed the door. Blue was by himself once again. He shrugged and continued reading the e-mail out loud, to himself.

"A pronk band named Deeply Religious would like to take part in the Cobble Stone Square Youth Music Festival this year. The plea was signed by all three members – their human singer and quetarra player Charon San Valorum…I wonder if he is related to that politician, that playwright and…hmmm…Anra Reken, their bass mando player from Duro…and their Ortolan drummer, Kaabalt Nubes. I am not sure what genre of music pronk is, but I am sure they mean well. They sound non-threatening to me. Young people need some good role models!"

Without any further thinking, he copied and pasted the approval template and attached a couple of mandatory flyers promoting the Triad, the famed Sacorrian whiskey and the artisan crafts of the Cobble Stone district of Dorthus Tal City.

...

**Nuba City, Nubia, minutes later**

Pronk bassoon player Anra Renek was surprised with the e-mail that just flashed on the screen of the datapad. His friend Kaabalt Nubes, who was until then sitting in an exceptionally large armchair, watching sports on HoloNet, got up.

"What happened? I hope I didn't move my bum for nothing."

"Approved! We were approved! This makes no sense; it's Sacorria we're talking about!"

"How did this happen? What does the holosignature say? Who approved you?"

"Somebody who signs their e-mails with Code:Blue."

Anra looked at his stocky friend and he could swear that his trunk just went up in the air. They were not good at reading each other's expressions, with one of them looking permanently sad and the other being extremely lazy when not in proximity of food or his beloved set of drums. However, they could both read Charon San Valorum, their Human frontman, who had just entered the rehearsal space, carrying three cold bottles. His face lit up, as he jumped up and down.

"No way! No way! Holy Mandalore varactyl with constipation! That guy was a limmie player until, like...last year! He and that other guy, Code:Red were my favourite people ever. They beat the poodoo out of Naboo in the Galactic Cup finals six years ago and he is responsible for that weird winner dance everybody is doing nowadays."

Anra was not too familiar with limmie, but the "weird winner dance" seemed familiar from somewhere. Has he heard of this person before?

"These are the three very last bottles of Aldeeran beer, by the way," Charon said as he was re-reading the e-mail over Anra's shoulder, "They must be worth thousands of credits, but I don't care. We managed to fool the most notorious administration known to Core Worlds! And this time next week, we will be drinking the famed Sacorrian whiskey, anyway!"

For the next couple of minutes, they were chugging their beer in silence and then Koobalt spoke again, with the same excitement, as if he was unable to believe that their complex fraud paid out, for once.

"So, Taungsday, the 12th of this month, at the Cobble Stone Square in Dorthus Tal. I am still surprised by your courage, pal. We are risking a lot of by choosing such a strange place to show our disobedience."

Charon winked at his friend and continued to peel off the adhesive flimsi label from his beer bottle. He did not seem to think that his plan was outrageous, in any way.

"You see, Koob, sometimes one needs to opt for the strangest scenarios possible in order to achieve what is necessary. Sacorria is, after all a neutral planet. If we don't give a kriff about the Imperial Board of Culture, we may as well not give a kriff somewhere where we can gain alies…"

Anra was suspicious. "How neutral is neutral in this case? Aren't they dependent of the Corellian Diktat?"

"Aren't we? Let me help you: we are not. All the Nubian corporations made this a pretty harmless place to be in the face of this awful, awful war. The same way the Galactic Empire needs us for our technology, the whole sector needs Sacorria for its food and booze. Right? Now, let's rehearse. If we're to shock them, we need to be shocking enough."

Charon slammed his beer bottle against the sonipool table, grabbed the quettara and played the riff to "Ooh, It Bites!", the song that prompted the Imperial Board of Culture to take interest in the Nubian pronk scene.

Footnotes:

Anra Renek is a Clone Wars orphan, yet his name means King of Laughter in Durese. Isn't life ironic sometimes?

I would assume that I don't have to explain the name Koobalt Nubes, especially not when Max Rebo's real name is actually Cerulean Phantele.

While Deeply Religious are legends-canon, nobody ever elaborated on them; so I made them resemble an influential band from our planet. As the time passes by, it will become clear which band it is, this may depend on your knowledge of music. I am reinventing some actual punk scenes from our planet and some other bands as I go.

**Fanon:**

First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata - Farmschool in the biggest city (but not the capital and the administrative centre) of Sacorria

DOBY - a joint venture of two corporations from Nubia, known for their ground-breaking, Galaxy-wide famous software Holoshed, as well as Stylus, HyperThreads, Thunderoo, HyperFilmsi. Coming up by 4ABY: HoloMatinee and Starfield - HOLOSHED, BUT FOR HOLOVIDEOS!

Holoshed - A renowned tool for sophisticated holography editing, the use of which among amateurs is often frowned upon by professionals. Though DOBY was never in direct control of the Empire, it has been rumoured that the Imperial Intelligence is using a special, advanced version of Holoshed for psychological war. Holoshed is so popular that a neologism "holosheding" ended up in the University of Coruscant dictionary of modern Basic; meaning "to enchance one's features by the use of Holoshed".

pronk - punk in GFFA. The instruments in a pronk band would be quettara (of Zabrak origin, according to Wook), a bassoon and, well, good old drums.

sonipool - my poor attempt at reinventing pool, billiard, snooker, whatev'


	2. Addendum: Deeply Religious

**Addendum to the first chapter - BybloPedia and HoloPedia articles on Deeply Religious. **

**Deeply Religious **  
_(from BybloPedia, the source of free knowledge in the Galactic Empire from the Byblos University) _

Deeply Religious is a band that the members of Imperial Youth should not be listening under any circumstances; because their music is loud, full of expletives and libellous in nature. The band's music was banned by the decree no 1039/20AE and anybody caught in possession of their work is to be prosecuted.

The band is composed of two filthy semi-sentients, Anra Renek and Koobalt Nubes and a Human traitor, a reject-all-Imperial and a son of a former revolutionary, Charon San Valorum.

The responsible Imperial Youth is hereby encouraged to notify COMPNOR of any sightings of Deeply Religious; as well as to report all HoloNet outlets playing their music.

-

**Deeply Religious **  
_(from HoloPedia, the real HoloNet encyclopaedia provided by the Rebel Alliance) _

Deeply Religious is a Nubian pronk band from the outskirts of Nuba City, Nubia. Throughout its run, the band has been a trio with a constant line-up composed of the Ortolan percussionist Koobalt Nubes, nicknamed Master Koobs, Duro bassoon player Anra Renek and Human singer and quetarra player, Charon San Valorum; all of whom were born in Ronto, near Nuba City in 9 Gr:S.

Deeply Religious were originally part of the prolific pronk scene in Nuba City's famous 1337 Club, located at the 1337 Corellia Day Street. Their first two records, _Angry Teenagers_ and _Growing Pains _were released with the independent label RontoRiot Records. The later sold surprising 50 million copies around Nubia and the rest of the Corellian Sector.

At the point their major label debut, _Poodoo!_ was released Galaxy-wide on Teta Tunes in 31 Gr:S, Deeply Religious were already an established and popular act on the local scene. Poodoo! was both a critical and chart success, selling ten billion copies and resulting in the band's first Galactic tour.

After their first Galactic tour, Deeply Religious released a self-titled compilation of selected songs from their first two albums, to which The Imperial Board of Culture reacted by placing their work on the infamous list of Scarlet works.

The band subsequently released two albums on their own label. Advanced Explosives Handbook and Emperor of Air and Darkness are both known as bold anti-Imperial statements, with a lot of the songs namedropping the Imperial authorities, including Emperor Palpatine himself. Shortly after the rlease of Emperor of Air and Darkness, the whole of Deeply Religious' back catalogue was banned from selling in the HoloNet digital stores, on open markets and other places by the Imperial Board of Culture, due to their music being "fast, loud and dangerous". The physical copies of their albums have been destroyed in a raid.

Despite the negative publicity surrounding them, Deeply Religious are often cited as one of the bands that contributed to reviving pronk in a new, contemporary form, next to other Nubian acts, The Younglings, Rimmers and Force Rejects.

**History **

**Formation and RontoRiot years **

In 24 Gr:S friends Charon San Valorum and Anra Renek, 15 years old at the time, formed a band they named Deeply Religious, the prominent starship designers' son Koobalt Nubes joining them on drums after having been the only being to answer the ad they wrote on pieces of flimsi all around their Design School.

Unlike Nubes, Valorum and Renek did not come from rich families. Pulott Valorum was murdered in a battle between an early anti-Imperial faction and the Imperial troops long before his son became a musician. Seemingly, Anra Renek is a Clone Wars orphan, adopted by a Human family in Ronto.

There are a couple of stories so as to how the band name came to be, but the prevalent opinion of the music critics nowadays is that it's a play on one of the common insults towards the Force sect that Valorum's deceased father was rumoured to be a supporter of, though himself not Force-sensitive.

The newly-formed band first performed at now-famed Shorn Stabilizer cantina, where Valorum's mother used to work as the chief of staff. Ten standard days later, they were offered to record an album on the independent label RontoRiot, led by the local DIY pronk scene legend, Seemor Starwatcher. Their first two albums, Angry Teenagers and Growing Pains were released on the label spanning two standard years inbetween; and most of their early songs deal with girls and finding one's place in the world.

At some point prior to the release of _Growing Pains_, Nubes family provided the younglings with new instruments and their touring starship, a beat-up old Nubian which Valorum named "Sticks". At the end of this tour, Valorum also got into a fist fight with the Steamy Hot Wasaka Stew frontman Antonio Nokaarbe, whom he had previously mocked in one of the first Deeply Religious songs,_Nokaarbe Is Not Handsome_.

**Poodoo! and Galactic Breakthrough **

After the Nokaarbe incident made headlines of the newsflimsi around the Galaxy and Nokaarbe himself claimed he was "assaulted by a tiny madman" to the notorious sludge reporter Yilda Lami; Deeply Religious caught the attention of the Empress Teta-based major label Teta Tunes. A representative then invited the band to Cinnagar to sign a contract; and though they had previously refused offers by Corellian Sector's major labels, they jumped on Sticks and travelled to the Deep Core planet. Antares Dain, a previously unknown producer specialising in heavier, quettara-dominating music was assigned to work with them

Deeply Religious' major label debut, _Poodoo!_ was released Galaxy-wide on Teta Tunes in 31 Gr:S, accompanied by holovideos for Cloudcity [sic], Garbage Disposal (Dianooga, Eat Me!) and Get Away. Poodoo! was both a critical and chart success, selling ten billion copies in the first year from its release. During this time, the band had a brief rivalry with their fellow Nubian pronks, The Younglings, notably with their leader, Rexon Froz, otherwise a xenobiologist. Froz was quoted as saying that Deeply Religious lacked the true pronk sensibilities and that their work had no traces of activism, with most of the songs being about finding oneself and dealing with females.

The release of Poodoo! was followed by the band's first-ever Galactic tour, including some stops that were deemed to be controversial by general public, such as Dac. Deeply Religious were famously denied landing on Kashyyyk; with the official version of the decree stating that they could not have performed for non-sentients such as Wookiees and that there was no sufficient Human population to perform for.

**Decline, Ban and Exile **

One standard year after Poodoo! was released, Deeply Religious have opted for a different sound and a different direction in their career. In an interview with Beat, Charon San Valorum stated that having such a large audience is a privilege and that he and his band mates wanted to make sure that, now their voice is heard, they will focus on social issues in the Galactic Community; as opposed to the confessional, self-loathing songs that marked their earlier work and resulted in their rise to stardom.

Following this, the band released a self-titled compilation consisting of selected songs from their first two albums. The Galactic community, otherwise unaware of Angry Teenagers and Growing Pains, was thus introduced to their more politically-charged early works, with titles such as Twi'lek Dancing Girls dealing with slavery and exploitation of non-Humans. The Imperial Board of Culture reacted by placing both the Deeply Religious compilation and the Poodoo! Album on their list of Scarlet works.

Deeply Religious responded by self-releasing two politically-charged albums, _Advanced Explosives Handbook_ and _Emperor of Air and Darkness_. This resulted in a raid of Teta Tunes warehouses, destruction of the physical copies of their albums; as well as the brutal COMPNOR-arranged murder of Seemor Starwatcher, the man who discovered Deeply Religious, while he was taking a trip to Coruscant. Teta Tunes officials were pressured into dropping the band off their label and publicly denouncing all of their work for being "fast, loud and dangerous", in order not to suffer Starwatcher's fate. The band's work was also removed from all widely-known HoloNet stores and placed on the Imperial Board of Culture's list of Banned works.

It has long been speculated that the band's multi-species nature was another factor that contributed to their ban and that Valorum received an ultimatum, asking him to replace Renek and Nubes with a Human bassoon player and a drummer; which he refused; claiming that the two men suggested as replacements were COMPNOR agents.

Currently, Deeply Religious have been rumoured to be touring independent clubs all around the Core. If you're interested in seeing them live, contact your local independent promoters and make sure you're using the known HoloNet blockers if you're holostreaming their music. Pronk's not dead and you know it.

**Discography **

Angry Teenagers (RontoRiot, 27 Gr:S)  
Growing Pains (RontoRiot, 29 Gr:S)  
Poodoo! (Teta Tunes, 31 Gr:S)  
Deeply Religious (Teta Tunes, 32 Gr:S) [compilation]  
Advanced Explosives Handbook (Self-released, 35 Gr:S)  
Emperor of Air and Darkness (Self-released, 37 Gr:S)

**Angry Teenagers **

Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.

01 Saw Her at the Archives  
02 Please, Don't Go  
03 Gamorrean Hard Case (lyrics and music by A. Renek)  
04 Here I Am Not  
05 Deeply Religious  
06 Torch Song  
07 Nebulae  
08 Being 17  
09 Trying to Fit In  
10 Nokaarbe Is Not Handsome  
11 The Diktat's Pretty Cousin  
12 I Am An Angry Teenager

**Growing Pains **

Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.

01 To My Future Girl, In The Stars  
02 Just Another Art Form  
03 Truth, What Truth  
04 A Shuttle to Sacorria  
05 Freedom of Speech  
06 Please, Hurt Me (Lyrics and music by K. Nubes)  
07 A Podracer's Prostitute  
08 She Is Out There, Somewhere  
09 Saving the Universe (Again)  
10 Twi'lek Dancing Girls

**Poodoo! **

Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.

01 Bored Imperial Youth  
02 I Will Kill You All  
03 Wermo  
04 Cloudcity  
05 Nuba City Sidewalks  
06 Babe is Gonna Kill Us All  
07 Garbage Disposal (Dianooga, Eat Me!)  
08 For a Former Lover  
09 Wanna Do Nothing With Me?  
10 Get Away  
11 Identity  
12 Former Fake Friends (lyrics and music by A. Renek)  
13 Good Luck with Him  
14 KYAKY [Kriff Yourself and Kill Yourself]  
15 Koobs Mumbles (hidden track, lyrics and music by K. Nubes)

**Deeply Religious **

Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.

01 Deeply Religious  
02 Freedom of Speech  
03 Gamorrean Hard Case (lyrics and music by A. Renek)  
04 Just Another Art Form  
05 Saving the Universe (Again)  
06 Torch Song  
07 Twi'lek Dancing Girls

**Advanced Explosive Handbook **

Unless otherwise stated, all lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious.

01 Illusions of a Good Kid  
02 Heavy Blaster Blues  
03 Having Fun With Detonite  
04 How Do They See Anyway (Stormtrooper's Dilemma)  
05 HoloNet Lover  
06 So Much for Tact  
07 Durasteel Eyes  
08 DIE, DIE, DIE!  
09 Where is Everyone?  
10 Sublight Jizz (Instrumental)  
11 Sign of Hate  
12 For You  
13 Alone in Hyperspace  
14 Reject All Imperial  
15 How to Get Banned (Have a Mind)  
16 Rotten to the Core (Empire's Crumbling)  
17 So Long (I Miss Her)  
18 His Cyborg Actor

**Emperor of Air and Darkness **

All lyrics by C. Valorum and all music by Deeply Religious, apart from track 06, which was written by C. Valorum, A. Renek and K. Nubes.

01 EMERGENCY EMERGENCY  
02 A Drunk Night on Devaron  
03 Lots of Banthasith  
04 (Imperial Uniforms) Look Bad On You  
05 Lost Promise  
06 Ancient Republic  
07 Fancy a Vacation on Kashyyyk?  
08 Not Your Kind  
09 An Ode to Tarkin (Not)  
10 Speeder Bike Races (Speed Kills)  
11 Ooh, It Bites!  
12 Empire Day Rituals

It is assumed that the album name is a pun on "Queen of Air and Darkness", a card in sabacc.

**Style And Influences**

Just like all the other bands of the pronk revival movement, Deeply Religious are said to be heavily inspired by the first wave of pronk at the times of Clone Wars, led by bands such as Conflict and Kriff Blasters. Jax Loodiee, the former frontman of Kriff Blasters has denied support for Deeply Religious, claiming they are not "true to their roots" and added that he "heard better music upon pulling water in his 'fresher".

Nevertheless, Deeply Religious still embrace Kriff Blasters as one of their main influences; next to glam-jizz groups of the decades prior to the Clone Wars.

Curiously enough, Emperor of Air and Darkness was heavily influenced by the protest lyrics of Dalyn R. Baobab, the legendary songwriter from Manda; who is currently in exile on Roon with the rest of the Baobab merchant fleet. The band members were quoted as saying that they hope Baobab has heard their new album and they would like to play on the same stage with him someday.

**_See also: _**  
Charon San Valorum  
Nuba City Pronk Scene  
1337 Club  
Seemor Stargazer


	3. One Bad Day

**_Saccorata, Sacorria, early morning  
_**  
Doria Vorr was refusing to come out of the 'fresher. That was rarely ever happening after what was a pretty much standard quarrel at the Vorr apartment. The only difference from the usual Vorr arguments was that this time there was a good reason for Maris Vorr to be angry. Unfortunately enough, the way she saw things was the way she usually would have.

"Are you trying to tell me that you're going to deliberately fail the entrance exam?" Maris yelled at her daughter again.

"No, mom! I was not even invited to take it, as of now. I sent my application and all, I have proof that it was sent. Maybe they didn't even consider it!"

"Are you nuts? Do you even know how much we invested in your education?"

"We? As in you and...who else? School has been free so far. Studying at the Dorthus Tal University is free, too."

"It was, but tell me, Doria…who was preparing your meals? Who supported you on your way there?"  
Doria was trying to remember how the "support" looked. If her memory served her right, it was mostly about yelling, threatening not to allow her to do what she wanted and making her feel bad for not achieving the highest grades possible in the subjects that were not her strongest suit.

She could recall that one failed exam that cost her sitting at home when her parents were taking one last trip to Vagran to visit the great aunt Larax. She remembered that one time she could have seen the Max Rebo band perform, but her father angrily tossed a wallet full of coins on the floor and asked her what was the point of that.

And there were so many situations where she felt like she would have died if she had cried again. That was the reason she was not crying anymore and opting for hiding.

She shook her head, grabbed a large dust corn protein bar and sat on the fresher, her legs up on the tube.

"Doria, answer me!" Maris yelled from the corridor again. "Who supported you?"

"What does that have to do with this? I could have built us a droid to help with chores; you never let me do so!"

"Are you saying that you don't appreciate my efforts? And with your attention span, you would have built us an assassin droid, not a maid one!"

"No, but…"

"I accept no 'buts', Doria! You are not to be trusted with things."

Maris grabbed her purse and headed to the balcony. The yellow air taxi was waiting for her.

AARIS (Agricultural Appliances Research Institute of Saccorata), later that day

Gredda was standing across the large factory hall from a workmate of hers who was working on a droid. Her shift was over.

She ditched her lab coat and the helmet and placed the shiny black star pendant around her neck again. The last day of the week was not a work day on Sacorria; and she was looking forward to what was coming up – the annual Grain Night, the holiday when Sacorrian Drall were celebrating their arrival to the planet. According to official history, they were descendants of a noble Duchess.

According to what most of them did not know, yet Gredda was perfectly aware of, they were con artists and gamblers brought from their home planet of Drall, as well as Corellia and the Twin Worlds of Talus and Tralus; in order to serve as prison guards for Humans and Selonians in the planet-wide penal colony, the black spot in history that preceded modern Sacorria.

Once out of the building and about to mount her speeder, Gredda spotted a spark of colour in form of chestnut-red hair among many brownish-blonde heads. She crossed the street and greeted her friend's mother.

"Oh, hello, Maris! Going back home from the museum? I can give you a ride!"

The woman did not seem in the mood for talking, though she acknowledged Gredda with a single nod and some incoherent rumbling.

"What is wrong? Did you and Doria argue again?"

No response again.

"Maris, please don't ignore me. It was not long ago when you said that you always trust me with everything. Plus, my aunt expects to see you at tonight's special dinner party for the friends of the clan."

"I am not coming. I have things to do. Housekeeping and all."

"Why didn't you ask Doria to build you a housekeeping droid and a mouse droid? It's simple and all the FAIS students are capable of it. She had built some great ones in the class, just ask lect…"

"Listen, Gredda. Doria lied to me again. She claims she was not even invited for the entrance exam!"

Gredda shook her head. "Maris, Maris, Maris…Doria hated the last year at the FAIS so much that she dedicated herself to passing the norm for the Dorthus Tal University to the point where it was almost an obsession. Why do you think she would have sabotaged her own goals?"

Maris ignored Gredda's question, turned around and hailed another air taxi.

Meanwhile, at the Vorr apartment, Doria was doing some slicing, when a chat window popped up.

/ BlasetreegoatAU : Seamadeofglass chat session started at 1700 GST, 5:29:33 Gr:s /

BlasetreegoatAU: hai

Seamadeofglass: hai…v v v angri todai

BlasetreegoatAU: whai?

Seamadeofglass: something hapnd w mai universiti application. no response, whatsoeva. :/

BlasetreegoatAU: wut

BlasetreegoatAU: wut

BlasetreegoatAU: wut

/ BlasetreegoatAU sends a big Wookiee hug to Seamadeofglass /

Seamadeofglass: donai. i applied, d same dai i fixed tendra's holo. she got her response, mi…nothing. krfn nothing!

BlasetreegoatAU: wut d kriff! How cud dey do dat 2 u!

Seamadeofglass: mi mom doesn't beliv mi. she thinks i neva eva appld.

BlasetreegoatAU: ur mom is a pc of work.

Seamadeofglass: ai agri.

/ Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel /

Seamadeofglass: g2 go…somebodi is at the dock.

/ Seamadeofglass has left the conversation. /

Doria disconnected from HoloNet and went to see who docked to their apartment's balcony. She was relieved to see Gredda and not her mother.

"What are you doing here? What is going on?"

"Doria, we're going to Dorthus Tal City. Now. I bumped into Maris, she told me what happened and I have figured out what is going on.

"You know how it's like with us Vorrs. Grain Night is in a couple of days. Holidays are the best times ever..." Doria paused for a bit, "...for going to bed, putting the cover over your head and regretting the day you were born. Something always pops up - whether it's mom missing dad, whether it's what I have or have not done during the last couple of weeks, months, years. When there is no real reason, mistress Maris Inesedam-Vorr will make one up." Doria broke down and started kicking the wall behind her desk.

Gredda patted her friend on the shoulder. "There, there. Don't worry about it. I happen to know who is responsible for the student applications. This will be easy."

"We will be late to the dinner party!"

"I know, but my aunt has excused me many times when I worked late, so this should not be a problem either. Let's catch a hovertrain to Dorthus Tal. Now."

**Thirty minutes later at the Censorship and Scholarship Office, Dorthus Tal City**

Underneath the blank expression she had practiced for years, Doria was looking around the office. Whoever was supposed to be sitting on the chair across the room from hers was not there and, by the look of things, the one who greeted her with a broad smile was not fully aware of his own responsibilities. Adorned in perfectly ironed shirt and dress trousers, with a matching jacket, he got up from his desk and greeted her.

"Hello, comradette..."

"Vorr."

"Comradette Vorr, would you like GR-3 to bring you anything?" he asked. "Zherry juice? Vitamin water? Caf?"

"The only thing I am here for is the only thing I want, comrade..."

"Joak Bluestar Shykrill Glisse. People usually call me Code:Blue, of course. I used to be a...no, please, don't do that!"

Doria was already imitating the choreography Code:Blue was known for from the planetary team's days as the Galactic Cup winners. "And that's how babies burp, right?" She snickered.

"GR-3, bring her one of each!" The administrator snapped his fingers at the musteline protocol droid. She muttered something in Mandaba and headed to the turbolift. "And, of course, I'll go get your file while she brings you the drinks!"

Doria looked on as the administrator ran through the office space. He was almost making her dizzy. He walked like a background dancer in operas and babbled something in the voice similar to the one of a prepubescent boy.

"Did you say Korr?"

"No, Vorr. Doria Vorr."

Code:Blue reached for a dusty pile of flimsi from the top shelf of a large storage cabinet. The Selonian-esque droid returned with three different glasses and placed them all in front of Doria. She shrugged and picked the glass of zherry juice. It was overwhelmingly sweet, making her teeth hurt. No wonder everybody at the government offices building was behaving like this.

"Why is this necessary?" she asked. "Isn't everything in the state computers, anyway?"

"W-we…we tend to rely on both methods, there is always a chance we might get t-things wrong!"

"Isn't that chance below what would be considered a standard error?"

"One n-n-never knows, com. Korr…"

"Vorr!"

"Vorr, sorry again. Imagine if an enemy of our planet and the values we hold so dear would slice the government computer system and get a hold of everybody's files? It's better to be safe than sorry! GR-3! Bring me some of that zherry juice…and a dust corn pudding with caramel topping, please! Make it two puddings, of course!"

"This whole building will turn into a cake someday." Doria thought to herself and reclined in the chair she was offered earlier. She might have fallen asleep for a while – once Code:Blue spoke again, he was in her face and too loud.

"Ms K…Vorr?"

"Eeek!"

"Sorry. I found your file, finally. The letter vev was in the last drawer, with wesk, xesh, yirth and zereth. I could've never guessed!"

"Figures..." Doria rolled her eyes. "So, what is in my file?"

"Doria E. Vorr, born on the 26th day of the Progressmonth, eighteen years ago. Graduated from the school no 4 of the district 1986, also known as Northern Sacorrata, of course, four years ago. Graduated from the First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata, some weeks ago, which is not in the computer, but it is here, thus p-p-proving my point. Currently unemployed, qualified for the job of the agricultural technician. No brothers or sisters, parents are the deceased AARIS engineer Elesandre N. Vorr and the Museum of Corellian Sector History custody, Maris I. Inesedam-Vorr…the latter has been listed as a potential traitor for keeping her maiden name. The subject herself is known for hanging out with the members of the R'vanye Drall clan, headed by Duchess Branna..but she has also been seen with faithful servants of Their Majesties a lot. Most likely not dangerous. Not very likely to graduate from university due to lack of harmony in the family, of course. Possible candidate for job in the…I can't read this last part, it has been censored and us minor employees don't know the code."

Doria propped herself in the seat. Her eyes were now wide open.

"Are you sure you were supposed to tell me all this? The part about my mother being a traitor and plans to make a good citizen out of me?"

Code:Blue hit himself on the forehead.

"It happened again!"

"What happened again?"

"The reverse theory. Oh, no, I said it. I cannot talk about it, please, forget that I have said this!" He started running around the office again, eventually stopping by the window to open it and catch a breath. The Dorthus Tal Sea and the maximum-security prison to his left, and the Watchtower Base to his right would have made the bones of any civilian not empoyeed in the government shiver. But, for whatever reason, he always thought of them as serene, reassuring him that he was doing things right.

Once he turned around, he found himself face to face with a light-furred Drall female.

H-h-how did you get in?"

"Behind GR-3. She was carrying something that was more sugar than dust corn pudding and I figured out who's on call today. "

"Who are you?" Code-Blue took his portion of the pudding, his hands shaking. "Of course..."

"Gredda. My aunt is one certain Duchess Branna of the R'vanye clan, I am sure you have heard of her. And we both happen to be very fond of this young Human female here, and her mother, too!"

Gredda sat on the window pane, throwing a quick glance at the buildings and the sea visible from where they were sitting. Then she smirked and closed the window.

"The only building in Dorthus Tal City other than Their Majesties' residental complex that the Watchtower Base cannot surveil is this one, right?"

"Ummm...right."

"Let me rephrase everything for you, comrade Glisse. This here is my friend, a sympathiser of the R'vanye clan. She submitted an application for the basic studies at the Dorthus Tal University and she never got a response."

Code:Blue looked at the Drall sitting at his absent colleague's table and going through the data on the terminal.

"I am sorry." He broke. "This was my mistake, of course. My colleague, whom you may know as comrade Code:Red was looking at holos of somebody called Tendra Risant, I remember that name well because it reminds me of the comrade Jhorn Risant working in the education department on the floor below..."

"That would be his daughter. I helped her write her application letter and I taught her how to tweak her holos. I was probably right behind her in the queue…"

"And the last file had the NOE stamp on it! Not-obedient-enough, of course!" Code:Blue was still crying, his head hidden by his hands.

"Now I see why they call you 'Crybaby', Glisse." Greeda shook her head. "You made a mistake, the system you are using seems to be flawed, but how do you think you're going to solve it if you continue crying like that?"

He thought a bit, drying his tears with the sleeve of his expensive dress jacket. Then he checked something on the datapad on the empty desk next to his. Minutes later, his smile was there again.

"There is a spare place on the University of Vagran in Abatore intended specifically for a Sacorrian student! Since Ms K is not considered to be obedient enough for the Dorthus Tall University and Sacorria and Vagran have reasonably good relations. That would, of course, imply that she is obliged to return to Sacorria and serve the government and Their Majesties once her studies are over. But there is only one little problem…no accommodation left at the Sacorrian dormitory building on the campus."

Doria's face lit up. She was about to say something about her great aunt living in Abatore, but Gredda coughed loudly, prompting her not to.

"Any other accomodation options?" The Drall was now more or less in the administrator's face.

"Twenty kilometres from Abatore is, of course…"

"Anaslinea-Hoc?" Doria interrupted Code:Blue again. "The newish spaceport?"

"Yes. The town itself is small and has an arid climate, no more than seven thousand inhabitants and less than hundred years of contemporary history behind it. However, numerous tunnels below the surface, extending under the Kaza'an Gulf as well as locations within the town itself hold a lot of secrets about the past of the entire planet. Of course, we would relocate both you and com. Inesedam-Vorr there and find you a house to live in, then making sure she is employed in their local museum. She would, of course, continue to work with her parent institution. I would have to talk to her about this, of course."

Doria shivered at the sole idea of somebody having to convince Maris of anything.

"You? Are you sure?"

"Of course. My colleague is away. There is no other option. Since it will take some time to relocate you, we'd better start come tomorrow. I will travel to Saccorata after breakfast and you will wait for me, introduce me to your mother and then I am going to explain this to her."

"Is there any other option?"

"I'm afraid not. Unless we place you in this university, the only other option, of course, is operating the droids on dust corn fields or a shuttle to Sarcophagus."

"Fine, comrade Glisse." Gredda adjusted the black star pendant. "We will make sure that comradette Inesedam-Vorr doesn't reject the proposal."


	4. BUY SAYGO

The sun was setting over the bright red, perfect roofs of Saccorata's residential districts when Doria and Gredda got out of the repulsortrain station closest to their street, on top of the tallest building. As they were climbing down the stairs to the first available pedestrian level, Gredda was thinking out loud about what had just happened.

"Tomorrow is going to be interesting, to say the least."

"Yeah. I pity Code:Blue already. But not more than I pity myself. Let's see which one of us will cry more."

They entered the pedestrian lane about 30 metres above the surface. Near-translucent wire fence on both sides was covered in vines, creating an illusion of the plants floating in the air. Small insects were pollinating the red, orange and yellow flowers. A flower-shaped dispenser would spray grain fly repellent in preprogramed intervals. The lane itself was covered with neatly-trimmed grass that seemed to be of two different shades. The lighter shade was shaped like writing and, indeed, if one was to read it vertically, in the direction of walking, it seemed to be making sense.

PROGRESS AND ORDER!

PRACTICE SELF-DEPRECATING BEHAVIOUR!

BE A VIGILANT CITIZEN AND REPORT ANY INDOCRINATION FROM OUTSIDERS!

BUY SAYGO!

Doria glanced at the fourth and last piece of grass-writing.

"What is wrong with this planet? Everybody buys Saygo. Is it because they even write messages about it…in the grass?"

"Remember, I did my technician practice in the Saygo factory in Curheg and then at their headquarters in Sublata back in the days. Saygos are the cheapest landcars available in the entire Galaxy. Or maybe not, I bet they're making something more affordable in the Corporate Sector; but we were made to believe that nothing can be cheaper than a Saygo. For some reason, it goes well with the self-deprecating behaviour, stairs in place of some turbolifts and so on. But sure, they're not really reliable. I wouldn't go anywhere near, say, areas known grey bears."

"You _say go_ and it _doesn't go_. Right?" Doria stuck her tongue to the writing.

They continued through the flowering lane, which then declined to the 20m level. Large holographic signs were pointing pedestrians to directions of the rounded apartment buildings in the nearby streets. The intersecting lanes seemed busier than the large one they just came from. Neighbours were sitting in adjacent hovering cafes, watching sports games on viewscreens.

"Just a second, Gredda." Doria went over to the nearest café and approached two older men. "Is the qualifying session for the Tralus race over yet? Who's starting first tomorrow?"

"Haylo Cipesz, of course. He's the greatest!"

"No! Jax Novo is the greatest. Haylo Cipesz has nothing on him; he is not a fair player."

"Oh, great." The other, younger man joined the conversation. Doria recognised him as one of Tendra's friends. "Another teenage girl who demands justice for poor Jax Novo, just because he's handsome and regularly appearing in Juicy Blabber and Teen!Impz."

"I don't read Juicy Blabber and whatever the other thing is, I have not heard of it. I buy only dedicated podracing holos and those about speeders in general."

"That's what all teenage girls say. Do you have a secret Jax fanclub in some basement or what? He's basically a jizz-wailer podracer, that's the thing!"

"Kriff off. We're allowed to like the same things as you do."

Gredda pulled Doria's hand. "Let him go. It's not worth it, we will be late."

Doria shook her head and followed her friend. She didn't understand the fuss, but decided to kept quiet so she wouldn't sound like Maris. This dinner party was just a standard one Duchess Branna would throw every other week for her friends.

Nothing compared to the Grain Night. The Grain Night was the highlight of the year, for everybody who was friendly with the R'vanye clan. Held at the beginning of the summer, in honour of the peasant family that first welcomed the clan to Sacorria, the celebration would often last until early in the morning. And Duchess Branna knew how to party – she knew the best local musicians, the most breath-taking Selonian war dancers and, being the great leader that she was, she would bring some of the most influential bohemians of the Saccorata's Art Committee along. Even the grouchiest of the grouches – such as Maris Vorr – loved the Grain Night.

…

The next morning, Code:Blue arrived from Dorthus Tal City. Just like all true, dedicated state censors, he used the plain repulsortrain and not a speeder of his own, in order to promote self-deprecating behaviour to citizens. Doria was still in bed after a miserable podrace where Jax Novo crashed and Haylo Cipesz won; and she forgot to wait for the state censor at the repulsortrain station. Luckily, Gredda had foreseen this and at ten hundred, she was at the docking balcony of the Vorr apartment. Maris had muttered that she does not have her make-up on yet and the guest had to wait for full twenty minutes.

"Comradette Maris Vorr? Prog! My name is J…"

"The limmie player known for the baby burp thing? Wasn't your skin darker?"

"No, that was my team mate! The better guy, of course."

"Comrade, you were always less annoying than him."

"I-I guess I will take that as a compliment, of course?"

"Yeah…" Doria in PJs was standing at the end of the corridor leading to the den. "That's how my mother compliments people. Also, mom, he's a state censor or something now."

Maris nearly screamed. "What is a state censor doing at our home?"

"You should prepare yourself – and him – some caf." Gredda sat on the couch and turned the viewscreen off. "Make sure his contains more sugar than anything else. This is going to be a long morning."

…

Two standard hours later, Code:Blue was on the verge of crying. This would have never happened to Code:Red, he knew how to deal with the unbreakable comrades and comradettes. What exactly was Maris Inesedam-Vorr made of, that not even sugar, the precious sugar, could help him come up with a solution that would stop her from what she was now doing – lamenting over her, to him, pretty much harmless relocation. Sure, she was aware that she had to say yes to this proposal, for both her and her daughter's sake; but she seemed to be taking way too much pleasure in criticising him over what he could not control.

"Me? To live in that kriffhole and not Abatore, one of the most beautiful cities in the Sector?" She looked through the window, not turning her face back towards Code:Blue, Gredda and her own daughter. "This planet has completely lost it. We need to blow ourselves up or something"

"Of course…I mean, of course not, comradette Inesedam-Vorr!" Code:Blue's spasm of a smile was present again. He was slowly starting to realise where Doria got her sense of humour from. The only problem was that it did not even closely resemble humour. On the contrary.

"Comradette Vorr?" he turned to Doria. "I have brought you something special, to cheer you up, of course. Two free tickets for an event that we had to relocate to Saccorata from the Cobble Stone Square in the capital. I even named it after an event that's popular in this part of the city, of course. At least that's what I found in my documentation."

Doria grabbed the ticket out of his hands, solely to have Maris take them away from her.

"Is this supposed to make us feel better? The design of these tickets makes me want to punch somebody. Too much purple."

"It's not changing anything about your mood then, mom." Doria calmly pulled the tickets and, once in possession of them again, started reading the print. "Grain Night Fest Featuring Deeply Religious, Steamy Wasaka Stew and…Dadanna? H-how does this even add up?"

"It was my idea." He grinned. "Everybody on Sacorria loves pretty Dadanna! The best singer around, of course!"

"Wait, this means I won't be able to attend Duchess Branna's Grain Night banquet!"

"You will join us later. Better for me. When you're present, you're embarrassing me so much. The way you hold the fork and…"

"Yes!" Code:Blue cut Maris in the middle of the sentence. "This way you get two Grain Nights. The one everybody can get into…with a ticket and the mythical one that…wait? The two of you can attend the _actual_ Grain Night?"

"Glisse!" Gredda got up from the couch and walked towards him, the black star pendant reflecting the light. "I told you that my aunt is the current leader of the R'vanye clan. You can't seem to remember what you were doing yesterday."

"O-of course! I mean, no…I do remember yesterday!"

"And no, you're not invited to the Grain Night. The way things are going, we will probably throw another dinner party in Maris and Doria's honour and you can come to that one, but not this one."

He frowned.

…

Tendra Risant's comm beeped, just as she was getting out of the 'fresher. The code displayed was one she couldn't recall getting anything from for a long time.

"Prog, Tendra." The monotonous voice on the other side definitely belonged to the one she thought was calling and, apparently, it wasn't a mistake.

"Doria! What a surprise!"

"Tendra…this may come across as weird, but I have two tickets for the Grain Night Fest. Would you go with me?"

"Is Antonio Nokaarbe going to be there? Antonio of SWS?"

"Unless his band fancies performing without him, yes."

"Antonio! By the light of Sacor, Doria, I love you!" Tendra was dancing around the room at this point. "I am going to see Antonio again!"

"So, that's in two days. Where are we going to meet?"

"I am going to pick you up at four. Dad bought me a Saygo!"

"At four? In the afternoon?"

"No, at four in the morning. I need to be as close to Antonio as possible! I was in the hoverlounge at the Coronet City concert and I couldn't get a good look of his muscles with my own naked eye."

"You're kidding, right?" Doria was not amused.

"Not at all. Antonio Nokaarbe is…wow, you have to look him up on HoloNet if you're not familiar with SWS already. I l-l-love him! I could totally…marry him! Hey…where did you go? I guess somebody is jamming the calls again. Ohwell…"

Ten minutes after she had accidentally hung up on Tendra, Doria came across some holovideos of SWS and Antonio Nokaarbe himself. He looked like a small piece of furniture and, apparently, everybody thought he was Kiffar. Since the BybloPedia article only referred to his band as being on the Galactic Empire's Scarlet List; she activated the slicers' bypass to the uncensored network and looked him up on HoloPedia. He sounded like a scoundrel, fond of debauchery and the list of his former girlfriends, most of whom posed naked with him at some point, was so long that it took her three tries to open it. Since when was Tendra Risant, the girl who practically grew up under her father's desk at various government offices, fond of such egomaniacs?

And why were Gredda's ideas so weird sometimes? There had got to have been a better solution to get accommodation worthy of Maris' wishes. A better solution than being forced to invite Tendra Risant to this festival and then nagging about asking her dad for help once they were on the barrier.

Just then, a bubble with the latest news from the Galaxy's top podracing outlet formed across the screen.

JAX NOVO SACKED BY THE EMPRESS TETA RACING TEAM DUE TO POOR RESULTS.

Fed up with everything, Doria slammed the lid of her datapad against its keyboard and looked at the Jax poster on the wall of her room.

"My poor wookiee-ookiee, what are they doing to you? You…you don't deserve this."

She completely forgot to check for information on Deeply Religious.


	5. Destination: Anywhere

**_Sacorria - Vagran pipeline, around the same time as previous two chapters_**

Darse Loor glanced around the cargo department of his ship, Corellian Jewel. He was relieved. Four Twi'lek dancing girls and about a dozen furry specimens in chains were finally sleeping. The stun setting on his E-11 blaster rifle was truly the best thing since the invention of ice-on-a-stick. All those inferior beings whined way too much, as if twenty plus standard years of the New Order had not taught them anything. And he just wanted them to sleep.

Being related to one of the Corellian Sector's resident COMPNOR agents and an Imperial liaison officer sure had its share of perks. For one, he was allowed to get away with what he was doing.

"Captain Loor?" one of the Stormtroopers in charge of the shipment patted Darse on the shoulder. "Is it true that these things are being transferred to Blobbo the Hutt and not the Imperial Prison in the Estainia Hunting Grounds?"

"That's not an appropriate question, Lieutenant…"

"Geelmen. Aerenna Geelmen, sir." The trooper removed the mask and let her hair down. Darse was surprised to find out that one of the minions assigned to him was a zherry-haired woman with heavy eyelids and a captivating smile. "You can close your mouth now."

"I heard that last name before." Darse thought to himself. He coughed, trying not to look at the woman licking her lips, and did his best to sound like an authority figure again. "What do you think would allow you to ask such a question, Lieutenant Geelmen?"

"My older brother could find out. You know…Aryan Geelmen. I am pretty sure you have heard of him."

She batted her eyelashes, but it was in vain. At this point, she became instantly unattractive to Darse. Geelmen. Geelmen. Of course that Darse had heard of Aryan Geelmen, the notorious xenobiologist from Xyquine II. That man was going beyond what he considered moral, and he did not have high criteria to begin with. Geelmen once reported a Sacorrian doctor he worked with at a laboratory in Sublata for an inappropriate relationship with a near-Human, which was somewhat understandable. But after that, he got quite mad. He was involved with risky cybernetics-related experiments on war orphans and it has been said that his ways were unethical, even in terms of what would be allowed under the Tarkin doctrine. The last Darse heard of him, he was to be dealt with, by no one other than Darth Vader himself.

However, this woman just implied that Aryan Geelmen was…alive. And possibly endorsed by the Emperor Palpatine himself. He could have been kriffin' anywhere, doing kriffin' anything. This sly creature just put Darse in a position where he was obliged to give her the correct answer. The idea of the older Geelmen sibling finding out about somebody flirting with his sister and then refusing to give her the information she wanted immediately made him think of being tortured in a laboratory on a remote location. Somewhere where nobody would hear him scream.

He coughed again and gave response to the grinning lieutenant.

"So, yes. Most of these convicts are going to Thaeme, to be transported to the prison. That is what everybody knows. What they don't know is that, before we head to Thaeme, we are dropping a dozen Selonians and four busty Twi'lek maidens at the Central Spaceport of Vagran, as a hand of peace extended to Blobbo the Hutt. We may need his connections with other Hutts in future and this was what we came up with."

"And if these slaves were not registered, nobody will know. I think I get it." By this point, Aerenna was whispering in Darse's ear. "Blobbo the Hutt will love his new Twi'lek dancers, once they come round, of course. But why does he need so many Selonians?"

"They're low-maintenance, he said. They don't need actual beds; their fur never gets too long to require a trim. And they cannot mate with each other, due to the females being infertile, so there won't be younglings."

"I have dealt with many Hutts before, captain Loor. This one sounds strange. Why wouldn't anybody want to own minor beings from the day they were born?"

"He is…very clean, so I was told. He cannot stand younglings' barf all over the place and his twin majordomos are not the kind who would deal with it easily." Darse shook his head. "Anyway, I have to hit the 'fresher one more time before we've landed. See you later, make sure these beasts don't wake up."

"What? Do you think Blobbo will smell your…?"

"Shut up. I really have to go!" Darse ran out.

Aerenna glanced at twelve stunned short-furred humanoids lying on the floor. She was taught that Selonians could not function outside of their dens; that they were lost like fish out of the water without their queens. This was one of those rare moments where she doubted what she had learned at the Imperial Academy. This bunch had rioted all the way from Selonia, almost making the starship lose its curse in the middle of the solar storm coming from one of the uninhabited systems in the sector. Maybe they were actually sentient after all?

Her brother firmly believed that all of the species proclaimed to be non-sentient had special talents and that, the closer to Humans they were, the more chance there was that they could be used as organ donors. It all made sense to her. Kriff her parents for thinking Aryan was a black nerf; he was got to be right, all along.

She ran her hands through the fur of the nearest Selonian with shiny, yet rough grey fur. She stopped short of his waist, realising that she had been staring at his brown, torn trousers for too long. Then again, he was probably not likely to wear any clothes once at Blobbo's. If Darse was not willing, perhaps this creature was?

"Back off, bugslut!" he muttered through his sharp teeth. "Blast it!"

Aerenna gasped and jumped back.

"Your life is going straight to the sarlacc pit, babe. Why not have some fun with me, for one last time before that?"

"I'd rather have some fun with a sarlacc. I said blast it."

The Selonian jumped up and kicked the Stormtrooper in her stomach, just as Corellian Jewel came out of hyperspace. She hit her head against the wall. He checked her neck for vital signs. She was alive and likely to come round at some point. He had to think fast, but before anything else, he removed a piece of his tattered tunic and tied it around her mouth, gagging her with a ball of fur.

With the blaster rifle in his hands, he looked at his eleven unconscious friends, regretting that he would not be able to take them along. When the captain fired at them, everybody other than him was hit. His pretend-to-be-stunned stunt worked, for once. He wished they would wake up and attack the other three Stormtroopers somehow, then escape to the nearest town. But he had to make a choice and the only option was to save himself from being executed before even being subjected to whatever torture Blobbo had in store for his slaves. He had heard of Hutt crime lords and what he knew sounded worse than being eaten to death by a tunnel worm in a dead-end.

He swallowed a lump and wiped some sweat from behind his ears.

"Now, what if I stick her there?"

Looking away, he removed the woman's uniform. He found Human bodies to be disgusting and this one, with pale white skin and a narrow waist was the worst he had ever seen…just where did she get the idea that he would be up for a quickie with her? Had she ever seen a proper, plump, fertile Selonian? With one last shrug, stopping himself from spitting on her, he shoved her through the 150x150 cm chute. She still had her comm and if there were no dianogas on the ship, she would've probably survived. And perhaps she was willing to have her brother attach a pair of lekku on her head, either way?

Just then, Darse Loor came back. He seemed to have adjusted his hairdo while at the refresher.

"Babe, we are about to land. Would you care to help me out?" He grinned, and then realised that his underwear was hanging out. "Oh, kriff."

"Babe?" Is that how Humans were flirting? Disgusting!

"If you need help wiping yourself, no. I am not going to help you."

Darse frowned. "So, you don't like me anymore because of my bowel issues, lieutenant Geelmen?"

The Selonian hoped that nobody could see him shiver underneath the heavy Stormtrooper armour. "When I need information, I need information, captain Loor. It's all business, after all."

"Fair game, lieutenant Geelmen. Fair game."

At this point, Darse really, really looked as if a tunnel worm had chewed him and spat him out. Or - as the Selonian thought Humans would say - he was on the verge of tears.

A trio of Stormtroopers arrived before he could witness his captor humiliate himself over what he thought was rejection.

"We have landed at the Anaslinea-Hoc spaceport, sir." One reported to the captain. The other was observing the limp bodies on the floor.

"They don't seem to have woken up. Shall we just carry them to a speeder outside?"

"I do hope that you told the local authorities that we need a special speeder for our cargo and that you…" Darse flicked the invisible credits between his thumb and index finger.

"The man working in this shift refused to take credits. Instead of it, he presented me with a small pack of cigarras and some sort of a kabob. Apparently, today is a holiday."

"Niice, lieutenant Bargle. Let's make the best out of it. I would not mind spreading the bribe credit in two if people are bound to help us today, according to whatever stupid tradition."

"Five, sir." The Selonian heard himself say. "Or I'm telling Aryan that you scammed me. I could also tell your cousin Kirtan Loor about it."

Darse was close to hating Aerenna Geelmen at this point. He was hoping for a quckie and what he got was betrayal spreading like a deadly virus.

"She's got to be more than a Stormtrooper. She just knows too much." He thought to himself.

They got out of the starship. The landing strip was located right next to what appeared to be an endless black sand beach, in the middle of a large gulf. Some mountains were visible on the horizon, disrupting the perfect picture of the sea becoming one with the skyline. On the coast, houses were scattered on a nearby hill, with a particularly large one dominating the sight.

What looked puzzling to the Selonian was a large transparisteel barrier topped with a laser fence, rising up to seven metres in the air, leaving a very narrow strip of the beach between the spaceport and town in the distance. Just what was located there?

"I see your brother hasn't taught you anything about Vagran, Aerenna." Darse stroked his chin and gave the Stormtrooper a side-eye. "Nearly every community on this planet is surrounded by barriers, whether they're physical, chemical or plain energy screens. Vagranite non-sentients put "wild" in "wildlife", so to say...and they can kill you dead, yup."

"Of course I knew that…babe."

Darse could no longer take this woman's mixed signals. She could have as well been making faces at him underneath that helmet! He wished to be out of here, now. The hours he was scheduled to spend negotiating with Blobbo the Hutt sounded like a party with the Emperor's personal courtesans, in comparison to Aerenna's constant baiting. And it seemed that she had gotten worse after she was left alone with the ship's precious cargo.

"Let's empty the garbage from the chute into the disintegration unit and go." He looked at the group, who had finished putting the slaves in the front trunk of a bulky speeder. "These pesky locals won't allow us to leave the spaceport before we've gotten rid of what could be potentially dangerous to the planet's wilderness."

The local man with a cigarra in his mouth, who seemed to be the only person working in the morning shift that day, had a group of heavy-duty droids pull the chute cartridge out of the side of the starship. He looked on from a small repulsorlift platform, as they were emptying it inside of a large mobile garbage disintegration unit.

"Don't burn me alive, kriffslider!" somebody yelled. The man gasped, dropping the cigarra out of his mouth, when he realised that a pale hand was pulling him from inside of the round entry pipe.

He pulled out a slim, red-haired woman in her negligee.

"Bloody grey bears!" the spaceport employee hit his head against the lever. "I almost disintegrated a pretty lady! We need to give you a chemical shower, now!"

"What is going on up there?" Darse put his palm above his eyes and looked up. "Holy bantha poodoo…Aerenna? Then…who just rejected me?"

The three Stormtroopers looked on, as the fourth threw himself into the water.

"After the intruder, you fools! It could be somebody from the Rebel intelligence, somebody who lived in our garbage department for the last four hours!"

Lieutenant Bargle nearly jumped in the water after the rogue Trooper, when he noticed rough waves coming from the distance. Only then did he remember that there were fifteen, not sixteen bodies lying on the floor of the ship's cargo department.

"Captain Loor. That's one of your precious gifts to Blobbo, running away!"

"What the kriff?" Darse kicked the speeder's chassis. "And the three of you cannot count to sixteen? Start the search! We need to find this lower form of life and teach it a lesson. You know, we can always tell Blobbo that we accidentally killed one of his slaves when we stunned them."

"No sir…I mean, yes, sir…I mean, no sir!" Bargle looked on, as the intruder, apparently an excellent swimmer, got out of the water and crawled through the sand, straight below the durasteel barrier. Seconds later, there was screaming that sounded like the Selonian slaves rioting right before they were stunned…and a Stormtrooper helmet was fired out of something located in the middle of the restricted area, followed by a loud burp. It landed straight in front of Darse Loor's feet.

"What did you just gives to the only sarlacc on Vagran?" the local worker dropped yet another cigarra out of his mouth. "We feed it a special diet; we don't allow it to eat something that could make it sick. On the second thought, I wants those credits. There is no way I is able to explain this to our authorities, not without losing my job!"

"Call off the search. It's not like anybody could have survived that. One piece of scum less is a job well-done, after all. And that slimey Selonian will be slowly digested for a long time to come. Kirtan will be proud of me" Darse grinned, glancing at Bargle and the other two Stormtroopers. "Now…where exactly is Aerenna getting this chemical bath?" His grin was painfully wide at this point. "I wonder if her brother would approve of what was, in the end…my…flawless…extermination plan."

About thirty minutes later, the speeder departed to Blobbo the Hutt's mansion in the hills. Elsewhere, a Selonian in tattered clothes was limping and crawling his way towards Anaslinea-Hoc. He was nearly swallowed by the unexpected Sarlacc and only quick thinking, that Humans were sure he was not capable of, saved him from doom. Selonians were accustomed to quickly removing their clothes when they were not in presence of Humans, so getting off the heavy Stormtrooper armour just at the moment when the slimey tentacle was about to grab him, was a result of a lifelong habit. Nothing more.

He reached a dusty street leading to what seemed to be the waterfront. A small park was separating the street from the black sands beach. Four buildings with way too many balconies and a three-storey dark green hedge next to one of them were closer and closer. He had to reach one of them, somehow. Had he been given some water and food since his capture on Selonia, this would have been so much easier. And he was starting to doubt himself.

"If I am seeing a giant hedge, then I must be nearing my end…"

Sadly, his feet, no longer listening to him, were dragging him in the direction of the hedge. There were so many legends his den's storytellers told to younglings about afterlife, but none of them mentioned any kind of gigantic shrubbery. The leaves smelled so good, almost like berries. He got close enough to caress one of them, and then he dropped.

Seconds later, a Human female with shortish, greying hair, wearing a flower-patterned blouse and a long, indigo blue skirt ran out of the green whatever. She picked the blaster from the Selonian's limp hand and, before he knew, had him at point-blank range.

"I normally don't greets my visitors like this, but you…you is suspicious!"

"Don't shoot!" he yelled. With one last droplet of strength, he managed to add. "I escaped the slave transport."

The woman tilted her head.

"Why do you owns a blaster, then?"

"Long story. I was kidnapped on Selonia and they were taking me and eleven more males from my sept to somebody called Blobbo the Hutt." He clearly didn't like the rifle that bought him freedom being placed against his forehead. "I escaped. It's a long and strange story. Am I a refugee now?"

She was now smiling. Whatever he had just said, she finally believed him.

"We's all refugees here. We were almost killed with fire. It's a long and strange story. What's your name?"

"Soleo."

"I's Laoda. Let me bring you something to drink, you must be dehydrated. Can you get up and follow me inside?" She let him lean on her shoulder.

"Am I s-supposed to get into of the giant shrubbery?"

"Silly young man, Soleo. My property ain't no shrubbery. Sure the ol' Taliore needs a trim, but it's the cosiest lil' hotel you will find in town. You's going to love it here."

Soleo shrugged and followed Laoda inside.


	6. Standing In Line

As the shuttle landed on a high platform surrounded by dust corn fields, a pair of dark blue eyes peeked out from the last row of seats.

"So, we have arrived to Sacorria! Wake up, guys!"

"Yeah, now you'll be in your natural habitat, Dale. With Sacorrian grey bears. Maybe you'll find yourself a mate, too. Are you herding?"

Dale Pavan, the grey bear of a man, just grinned at Wompy's strange reply. He had spent most of the trip from Corellia to Sacorria with the members of Deeply Religious, since his own band mates were fast asleep. He had been concerned about Sassvar and Antonio for a while, but this time, even Wompy seemed to be absent-minded and almost unfriendly. His duty, or so he thought, was to keep everybody's spirits up.

And he was failing miserably.

A Drall intelligence officer was waiting for the seven passengers in front of the shuttle. She wore nothing but a red cap and a harness for a commlink and a blaster. Antonio Nokaarbe raised an eyebrow and started flexing his muscles, barely covered in a white piece of what seemed to be an oversized camisole. The other three members of Steamy Wasaka Stew walked past him.

"Names. Species. Hometowns. Homeworlds."

The shortish Wompy rolled his eyes and blurted out. "Con Brochet. Human from Tralus. And you didn't say welcome. Kriff that!" The Drall ignored his comment and looked up to the tallest individual in the group. He spoke before she repeated the question.

"Dandelion Roba Pavan. Human from Tyrena, Corellia." The Drall intelligence officer laughed and bit her tongue. "But you can call me Dale. The two guys who are still half-asleep are Sassvar Graba, Zabrak from Coronet City and Antonio Nokaarbe, Human from…"

"Not Human! That would be an error in the identification of the individual that is me. I'm part-Kiffar!" Antonio grinned. "Have you ever heard of psychometry…beautiful lady?"

"No and I don't care. Anything that does not contribute to progress and unity is a waste of time. Please, be quiet." She reached for the blaster in her harness, then stopped and just ran her hand through the fur on her hip instead. "Also, put a proper shirt on, now. It's not allowed to walk topless in public here. This is your second warning. Third warning means I'm pulling out my stun gun."

The intelligence officer walked to the other band.

"Dale, you ruined my chances with that one." Antonio looked at his drummer with an angry expression in his almost black eyes. "You completely ruined the probability of my engaging in procreation with this attractive individual! And I have an affinity to lady officers! And stun guns!"

Members of Deeply Religious were properly dressed and though chatty, pretty calm. The Drall woman was pleased.

"Names. Species. Hometowns. Homeworlds."

"Charon San Valorum, Human. Anra Renek, Duros. Koobalt Nubes, Ortolan. We are all from Ronto, Nubia. You are very welcoming, you know?"

"And so I am. Thank you." She offered Charon her hand. "I'm Brigada. I'll bring your host for the day over."

Antonio pouted like an angry toddler. "She didn't tell me her name! And she seems to like Valorum, out of all people! H-he wrote that atrocity of a song, which was clearly an attack on my persona and…"

"You promised that you're going to be friendly to him!" Dale reminded his friend. "It's not our fault we were booked to play with them on the planet with the most notorious prison in the sector. Remember that?"

The intelligence officer came back with a slender, black-haired Human male who was smiling.

"Welcome to the most progressive planet in the Sector, dear comrades! Comradette Brigada just told me you arrived and, of course, I cannot contain my excitement! I am your host for the day, Joak Bluest…"

It was too late. All seven guests were doing the "baby burp" goal celebration choreography already.

"Hey! I have done more than that with my life, of course!" Code:Blue protested.

"We know, you know?" Charon patted him on the shoulder. "We just couldn't resist. By the way, why are we taking the stairs?"

"Turbolifts are for climbing up only. Of course, we all need a bit of exercise, in order to live long and prosper."

Charon looked at Anra, who just shrugged, his permanent frown not making it clear if he was amused or bemused by their first taste of Sacorria. All seven beings rushed down the stairs, stocky Koobs panting behind the other six, struggling to follow their hyperactive host.

Once on Sacorria's well-known fertile soil, they were approached by a group of Selonian troopers. The musicians looked at Code:Blue, who seemed to be clueless so as to what was going on.

"Of…course…" He could not continue, as if somebody was jamming his grey matter. He kept on looking at the troopers, then at his guests.

Finally, one of the Selonians stepped ahead.

"We are acting on the order of Their Leaderships themselves. One of these groups of wailers needs to leave Sacorria, immediately; otherwise they will indoctrinate our innocent and well-behaved youth!"

Antonio Nokaarbe grinned.

"We knew it. Thanks for getting us rid of this major offender and his gang and…"

"Steamy Wasaka Stew are not welcome on this planet!" the leading trooper interrupted him. "Comrade Nokaarbe, you are to stay, but these three men will have to leave. We were told that only the singer of the offending band should stay on Sacorria."

Sassvar's eyes shifted from one side to the other, as if he had made a vow not to say a single word that day. Dal seemed genuinely surprised, while Wompy was unable to contain himself.

"You kriffin' den rats! Why are we not allowed to play here when we were invited to play?"

"Den rats? I am afraid I'll have to…" The trooper fired from her blaster. "…stun you. Calling me a den rat is offensive, den rats are our backwards ancestors on that clearly inferior world known as Selonia. Now, back to the shuttle with the three of you! Big guy, you seem smart. Carry this parasite and repeat what I have just said to the one with little horns. Nokaarbe, take your luggage and roadie droids and accompany the members of Deeply Religious and comrade Cod…Glisse."

Members of Deeply Religious grinned, as Antonio trailed behind them and Code:Blue on the way to the repulsortrain station, accompanied only by buzzing roadie droids.

"Mrgwfr frgrh asrrh."

"Is that old Kiffar, comrade Nokaarbe?" Koobs pretended to flex his floppy ears as if they were muscles. "You sure are in the need for some psychometry yourself."

Anra's cold tone was barely audible. "No use. He probably doesn't know what it means."

"It's fine, neither do we." Charon stopped playing with the ring on his hand for a moment. "But he will find out…at some point, you know?"

They got on the speeder. Saccorata was visible in the distance, but they did not seem to be heading there.

"Where are we going? I need to get my hair done before the show!"

"Relax, Nokaarbe…" Charon put his hand on Antonio's knee, regardless of how repugnant his unwanted travel mate was. In reality, he was scared himself. Something could have been wrong.

"You'll see." Code:Blue grinned from the seat next to his musteline protocol droid who was entering directions into the navigation computer. "Of course!"

…

Tendra and Doria had been waiting in line for about five hours. It was getting warmer and warmer. On top of it, there was nobody else in sight, just a single red and a single orange shirt in the middle of a large, green field that dust corn may have been growing on come the day before.

"I cannot believe I am going to see Antonio up close! Doria, can you believe it?"

"No, I cannot believe that you are going to see Antonio up close. What is the deal with SWS, anyway? Why do you like them?"

Tendra opened her second pack of chocolate and grain candies for the day and sighed.

"Steamy Wasaka Stew have got to be the best group in the Galaxy! They're fusing jizz with pronk on regular basis, their songs are so, so liberating…just read this." She waved her datapad before her friend's face. "Just read this. Please, please, please read!"

Doria glanced at the lyrics of a song, apparently called Master Lover and shook her head.

"If I understood this well, that Antonio of yours first wants to be stunned by a female trooper or an actual Imperial Stormtrooper and then sleep with her while the prisoner ship is in hyperspace. Nothing weird about that, all right." She rolled her eyes.

"In a truly free world, such things would be acceptable! It's a fantasy and…and…being swept off your feet by such a handsome man is what every girl would desire. Don't you?"

"Right…what I always wanted. An Antonio for me, an Antonio for you, an Antonio for everybody. Shame they outlawed this after the Clone Wars. Any other songs you would recommend? Something else?"

"Watch the holovid for Underlevels. It's about serious problems poor Antonio was facing while he lived on Coruscant! He had personal demons, poor dear!"

"Gredda, whatever is the reason you're putting me through this torture, stop!" Doria thought to herself and tilted her head to see the video from the right angle. It was the usual thing – Antonio posing, Antonio's hair in the wind, Antonio's chest up close, one Antonio fading behind another Antonio.

"Oh, so he does not use epilaser on his nipples and chin? Antonio, how dare you?" Doria tried to crack a joke. "Anyway, does this band have any other members?"

Tendra pointed at the datapad. "This is Wompy, the bassoon player!"

"It's a trash compactor."

"And this would be Dale, the beast on drums! Our mothers would probably say he's the real man."

"It's a tree, Tendra…wait, who is this? The one whom I can actually see for more than half of a second?" Doria pulled Tendra's hand at the sight of a thin young man with thick brown hair. "Pause!"

Tendra shook her head. "That's Anjie Men-man-manicure…no, Mencuri, sorry. Sorry. Anyway, Ant…"

"Why are you sorry? We all get names wrong."

"I'm sorry because I think he's dead and you asked about him. Nobody knows. He hasn't been seen for five years now. The last thing I know, he was possessed and they got rid of him. I don't think he was a good fit, anyway. So, Ant…"

"How do you mean 'possessed', Tendra?"

"You know, like, crazy. Tonight, I think Ant...Doria, what's wrong?"

"I need some water. And I changed my mind; give me a large piece of that chocolate."

Tendra shrugged. Doria grabbed her comm and typed out a message to Gredda, containing the thing she thought about earlier and a plea for a short-sleeved orange shirt instead of her long-sleeved one. Minutes later, the comm beeped.

"Gredda? Are you going to bring me the shirt?"

"I don't have much time, Doria…but I had to tell you this. I got a very strange HoloChat message. I was asked if I would lend my knowledge to an important project with super-high priority."

Doria moved away from Tendra. It took her good thirty seconds to respond.

"That has got to be a prank, Gredda! Either that, or they are trying to scam you and make you pay a fat pile of credits to invest in something…those Neimodian scammers!"

"Not this one. Whatever it is, they clearly know my name and background and they know what we're making at the factory. And they cannot make it without me!"

"Irrigation machinery and droids are pretty much common knowledge."

"Hmmm…right." The tone of Gredda's voice was strange for a moment. "Anyway, they want me in Dorthus Tal, tonight. I am leaving to an undefined location near Corellia from Their Leaderships' private spaceport. Maybe something is wrong with the Centerpoint Station and it actually has a purpose. This is so exciting, Doria!"

"Their Leaderships have a…what? And how am I going to survive mom now, before reuniting with great aunt Larax on Vagran? You have kept me sane for the past two years, since dad and granny died..."

"Oh, you will survive. And you are sane. Don't worry. Duchess Branna said that you can always drop by whenever Maris is being…Maris. On top of it, I will e-mail you from Corellia tonight. Make sure you join everybody at the Grain Night banquet after the festival."

"Will do, but…"

The call was over.

"What is going on, Doria? Who is it?" Tendra barely managed to mutter a couple of words through a mouthful of whatever the next thing she had in her bag was. "Sorry, I am so, so nervous!"

Doria didn't listen. She had forgotten to ask about the shirt again.


	7. A Proposal for Blobbo

**_Anaslinea-Hoc, Vagran, the same day_**

Blobbo the Hutt was reclining on his repulsorlift floating platform and eating plain apex tree nuts. A true Vagranite despite having been born on Nal Hutta, he was aware of the dangers of junk food and, luckily, his immense wealth and enormous appetite allowed him to be incredibly well-fed and, in his opinion, incredibly healthy at the same time. The reason he chose to carve his palace inside of a mountain was pretty much of similar nature – he thought that the stone would protect him from the dangers of cosmic radiation. This was the reason he never travelled to any other planet as well.

He called the mouse droid over to clean up the slime and activate the ceiling sonic shower. Despite the loud noise of flowing water from the Solvo sea, enhanced by minerals, he was pretty sure his probe droids registered somebody approach the cave-castle. What kind of a visitor would bother him close to the early bedtime he needed for his beauty sleep?

"That has got to be either Darse Loor or Aerenna Gelmeen." He said, with a strange accent that could only belong to a Hutt who spoke Basic by choice. "Fly to the door, Taggo and Maggo! Mousee, perfume me. Now!"

Blobbo's twin Toydarian majordomos collided in the air on their way to the gate.

"Watch out where you're going, Trunk-Brain!" Taggo yelled at his brother.

"No, you watch where you're going!" Maggo shook his fist. "I am going to make sure your trunk full of booger actually gets into your brain, through your eye sockets…wermo!"

The person at the door was a woman, but she looked nothing like Aerenna Gelmeen to Taggo and Maggo. She had no hair to speak of, was very pale and the jetpack on her back looked like something stolen from a Mandalorian armour. She did not seem one bit interested in the twins' blasters aimed towards her.

"Who are you?" They asked in almost perfect unison.

"The pleasure is all mine…boyos. I'm Dryxa, from the Bounty Hunters' guild. A Dathomirian, if that matters to your employer. I am coming here on behalf of a group of us who have a little proposal for you. And the two of you would be…?"

"Taggo and Maggo, His Greatness' most faithful servants. What kind of a proposal is this?"

"Oh…he will get more than he bargained for." The woman winked and reached out to one of their trunks. "But I am not willing to disclose the details to anybody below him…if you know what I mean. Cute trunk, by the way."

One of the Toydarian twins - the one whose nose she did not compliment - shrugged, titled his head and went to introduce the visitor to the Hutt crime lord. The other, seemingly kinder and slightly smitten, decided to warn her about his Master's practices.

"What you have to know, Dryxa, is that Blobbo is no stranger to extreme measures when he does not get what he bargained for. Last year, he started dismembering a rokna blue addict who owed him thousands of credits. And the other, wimpier one cried like a tooka and ended up giving us pretty much everything he owned to pay his debt, effectively becoming a slave here."

"What happened to these rokna addicts, Taggo?" Dryxa raised her eyebrow.

"I'm Maggo! The first bled to death before the Master's eyes in order to show others what will happen if they don't follow the orders. The other was taken away to Naboo by Darse Loor. The Master traded him for a rancor cub that he wanted to raise. I assume he is nothing but ashes on the bottom of the Solleu River, as he was too far gone to be bribed with spice to go on some undercover missions. You don't want to end up like him, don't you?"

Dryxa swallowed a lump. That was an unpleasant story. Poor rancor!

But this had to go on. There was no way back. She followed Maggo into the main chamber of Blobbo's cave. A couple of large amphorae stolen from various archaeological sites around Anaslinea-Hoc were displayed in a corner. Everything else was almost sterile, like a sight from a med lab. A large viewscreen was located on the straightest wall. That was the kind of place she had never seen before. Most Hutts' lairs were dirty and full of dust.

On top of that, a Hutt that smelled of flowers and ordering a mouse droid to clean the path before his visitor, Blobbo sure was an interesting sight.

"His greatness, Blobbo Fasolia Toupé." Taggo pointed to his Master who, to Dryxa's surprise, moved his tail in a curtsey-like position and opened his mouth wide upon the first sight of her.

"Dryxa Farr. Why is his greatness looking at me like that?" She turned to the Toydarians.

"You…you have no hair. That's clean! Very, very clean." Blobbo's tail swirled. "I always need to disinfect the place after Aerenna Gelmeen comes around. I once found a red hair in my food!"

"His greatness hates dirt." Maggo flew towards Dryxa and whispered. "And yes, he speaks Basic. His own language reminds him of goo." He looked at Taggo, who nodded.

"So, what do I owe this pleasure to?"

"As I have said to your loyal servants, I need certain information. Rumours travel fast and I am pretty sure that you know what I need and why I need it. And…I will bring you something you can then exchange for whatever kind of a servant or Imperial protection you desire."

"That's…cryptic. I am going to slime and…I don't like to slime!" Blobbo looked down. "Can you be a bit more straight to the point?"

"I could. Then again, I am not afraid of what you may do otherwise. I know your rancor died because you fed it a vegetarian diet. And I know most of your dangerous henchmen are out and about around the sector, chasing spice addicts and pimps."

Blobbo slapped himself on the head with his own tongue and then, realising what he had done, activated the sonic shower again. Dryxa rolled her eyes.

"So, what do you want?"

"Something that I know your faux-Imperial associates Aerenna Gelmeen and Darse Loor could give you…a location of what is rumoured to be built somewhere in the Outer Rim…right now."

"And why would you need that?" Blobbo straightened his tail again and reached out to grab some more snacks. "You are a mere bounty hunter, Dryxa!"

She leaned on him. He moved back and then set the platform to raise one metre higher. She casually activated her jetpack and flew up to him again, the confused Toydarians following her. Blobbo was getting nervous.

"D-don't infect me with otherworldly germs. Just tell me why you need that location!"

"You know, and I know that there will be blood spilled, just like the last time around." Dryxa made a summersault in the air. "And once that happens, we can both triumph. Sure you would want a lot of high profile hostages and you will need some skilled spacers to get a hold of them? Bounty hunters are known to be great spacers, right?"

She leaned on the Hutt again. After he failed to respond, she continued.

"I will bring you one of the COMPNOR's most wanted reactionaries and then you can swap him for whomever you want, whatever you want. He is true scum. Your kind of bounty."

Blobbo drooled and Taggo immediately flew towards him to clean his slime. Now, that would have made some good negotiation material.

"Is he a spice addict? Can he be bullied into gathering others' debt?"

"I don't think so. He is more of a party man, but that's not what matters. All of his band's works have been banned and COMPNOR has recently disposed of the person who discovered him. It was quite a scandal, even if you would ask somebody from Juicy Blabber, or whoever else is equally brain-dead."

"So, who is that? Could it be…"

"…Charon Valorum of Deeply Religious. I will bring him to you; you will give me the location."

Blobbo drooled again. This was like the New Year's fete coming early!

"I accept. Darse and Aerenna will be back from Thaeme in the morning. I will get you what you need, provided that you bring me Valorum in no more than two days. Otherwise…I assume Maggo told you how I deal with those who don't respect their part of the deal?"

"He sure did. And trust me…you won't need to dismember this girl. Plus, you like me. You want me to dance for you or whatever else turns a Hutt on. And I would need my limbs for that."

Blobbo nodded. He could not deny what Dryxa just said. As he watched the Dathomirian walk away, he accidentally knocked the snack bowl with his tail. Taggo and Maggo ran to eat the nuts from the shining floor before Mousee would arrive to dispose of them.

Dryxa activated her backpack the moment she was out of the cave-castle. Five minutes later, she landed on the roof of one of the last buildings in the town, right behind the sign that read "TALIORE – ROOMS AND BREAKFAST – AFFORDABLE – OPEN 23 HOURS". The roof and the sign were the only things that actually looked like a building; below them was a dense, dense hedge-like structure.

She knocked on the transparisteel roof door. It seems that nobody was up, which was slightly unusual for Taliore. Luckily, she did need some time. The waist bags below the jetpack were immediately dropped to the floor, so was the long scarf around her neck. She then proceeded to remove the pale make-up with markings from her face, to reveal a more or less standard Human tint.

Just then, her radionics device beeped.

"Sweetcorn, is that you?" the scrambled voice on the other side spoke through an immense amount of static. "Answer me!"

"Yes!" She jumped up in the air, almost stepping on her scarf. "Lucky you're close, so we can communicate without any significant delay. Though really, you could have opted for hyperyak chat instead. I've been using that for a couple of years and with a good filter, nobody can trace you. Nobody."

"I thought you called to say you were missing me." The voice sounded concerned. "This has got to be the strangest place ever; to the point where I cannot even believe it's real. But at the same time, it's nice. Not what I expected, clearly."

"Of course I am missing you, love. I have not seen you since…that unfortunate event. But remember, this will be over, soon. And we will be together."

"Love you too, Sweetcorn!" The static was annoying at this point and the voice was getting more and more breathy. "Now, tell me, did you manage to get the deal with Blobbo?"

She put the radionics gadget on the letter Trill to remove the bare scalp mask and spill on her hands and run them through a tiny bun on top of her head. Seconds later, she had luxurious, long hair.

"That I did. And we're going to get what we need to know."

"What if those hairy wermos may get it before us…"

"Even if they do, knowing the situation, not everybody will make it to the one who needs to know. By the way, where are you? What is that noise in the background?"

"Don't ask. Just wish me luck for tonight."

"It's already night on Vagran."

"Heeey!"

"Don't worry, I am just teasing you. Good luck, love!"

There was nothing but the static on the other side. Her partner had already gone. Just then, somebody opened the transparisteel door.

"It's you!" the woman in a flower skirt clapped her hands and let the young girl in.

"Laoda Kaeni! It's been a while!"

They hugged and continued towards the narrow, spiral stairs.

"I have somebody for you, by the way." Laoda said, as she was turning on the light in the dining room on the ground floor. "He arrived just the other day."

"Oh?"


	8. Progress versus Unity

**_Curheg, Sacorria_**

By the time the four visitors arrived to the city of Curheg, Antonio Nokaarbe was sleeping on the back seat of the shuttle. When they had stopped for a caf break earlier, he tried to make advances at GR-3, Code:Blue's musteline droid, but she did not seem particularly delighted. Sleeping seemed to be his method of coping with the second rejection of the day.

Unlike him, the members of Deeply Religious were eagerly listening to their cheerful, grinning host, never asking any questions about why they were suddenly being taken around Sacorria.

That proved to be a good decision.

Finally, the speeder dove into the thick-as-durasteel clouds of suspiciously coloured smog and landed on the roof of a large building covered in pink flowers. Code:Blue, who had spent some time grinning at places they were passing by, spoke again; as if he had snapped out of daydreaming once the picturesque landscapes changed to factories and almost exclusively eleven-storey buildings.

"Comrades, wake up! We have arrived to the glorious city of Curheg, the pride of Sacorria!"

"I bet you'd say that about any other city." Charon thought, scratched his nose and stretched in his seat. "So, where are we going?" He asked the host.

"The ProSper factory, where magic is made. Magic called Saygo!" Code:Blue jumped up and down and then looked to the back of the shuttle. "Comrade Nokaarbe, do you need a bib?"

Antonio woke up in a pool of his own drool on the cushion. Nevertheless, he seemed confused that the others were laughing at him.

"You OK?" Anra approached the flamboyant singer with caution. "Did something happen?"

"Something sure happened, my dear Duros. I had the most beautiful of dreams, ever. The most special, loving dream…involving a glorious individual of the female kind and I was…"

"…her infant child who could not burp?" Charon interrupted Antonio. "Yup, we get it, pal. That's one wicked, wicked fantasy you have there."

Nokaarbe was angry, but he remembered Dale's words and tried to remain calm. After all, Sacorrian trademark superfood – paranoia – was catching on him pretty fast – what if he was to become a slave at the ProWhatever factory?

GR-3 brought a super-absorbing sponge from the speeder's cargo compartment. Antonio raised an eyebrow and was about to say something, but she unenthusiastically stuck the sponge down his throat, turned around and followed her master, not paying any more attention to the offworlder. After all, she was programmed to despise them.

Charon was the first to get out of the shuttle. To him, Curheg didn't look glorious. On the contrary. The sun was barely visible through the smog and everybody walked around in shirts with a ProSper logo on them. He was sure that those shirts were supposed to be yellow, but the lack of colour was making them look greyish, almost dirty.

"It feels like home here." He said, sotto voce.

"Of course, comrade Valorum!" Code:Blue was right behind him again. "Curheg is home! Home of glory, home of progress and home of some of the most beautiful flower hybrids on Sacorria!"

"You misunderstood me, mast…comrade Glisse. I was born in Ronto, this…this small town on Nubia that you never heard of. And one of the reasons Nuba City is so beautiful is…the obvious fact that all the ugly factories, refineries and the shipyards are located in Ronto and the surrounding grasslands."

Code:Blue cocked his head. Then he shrugged and started nodding repeatedly, pointing at the flowers.

"I understand that. ProSper offices are in Sublata, of course! We will go there next, you will observe a true jewel of a city! But we don't have much time and you need to see the factory. Comrades Renek, Nubes and – of course - Nokaarbe, come along!"

"How can flowers even grow in this thick smog?" Anra looked at the closest iris. "I have never been to my home planet, but from what I understand, no plants grow on it and it's polluted…this place seems to be similar."

He kneeled and picked a flower. The scent was surprisingly sharp, in a good way, almost intoxicating. The Duros remembered something and, while Code:Blue was describing the beauty of Curheg to Antonio and Koobs, he came up to Charon.

"Do not smell any flowers, whatever you do!" He whispered. "I have seen Sacorrian irises before, there is something strange about these particular ones. I think they're a very, very specific kind of a hallucinogenic."

"W-what? Wasn't that a conspiracy theory from Galaxy Watch?"

"It was. But sometimes those turn out to be true. We need to be careful."

"Do we tell Nokaarbe about this?" Charon put an arm on his tall friend's shoulder. "Do you think it's our duty to warn him, like…true comrades?"

Seconds later, they both cackled.

…

The tour of ProSper factory was marked by a lot of "of course", a lot of manufactured enthusiasm on the workers' behalf and a lot of eye-rolling on the behalf of the two Humans, while the Ortolan and Duros mostly kept to themselves.

At the end of the visit, a group of women in traditional Sacorrian garbs approached Code:Blue and the four musicians in the main production hall. The shortest one among them, a Human with sandy-blonde hair, stepped out and presented the group with a carved wood tray.

"Progress and unity, comrades Valorum, Renek, Nubes and Nokaarbe!" The women behind her curtsied, as she continued. "Comrade Glisse may have told you that our glorious city of Curheg was the first settlement on the planet, more than twenty-seven millennia ago. And we have kept our humble customs to this very day. Therefore, I am presenting you with the traditional dust corn bread and salt from the mines of Solana."

Members of Deeply Religious stepped forward and took a slice of bread each.

"But…but…the carbs!" Antonio protested. "I do not eat…"

"What did you say, comrade Nokaarbe?" Code:Blue almost dropped the flat datapad he had been carrying around all day. Koobs stepped on Antonio's foot. The singer almost screamed, but – to everybody's luck – he got the clue.

"Sorry, I do not eat without carbs on the table. I'm so happy now. I get excited over carbs and I cannot imagine a life without a good slice of bread like this. Thank you."

The woman smiled and stepped back, leaving the food near a production line. She did not enjoy Antonio's presence. As the Ortolan reached back to the tray for more sliced bread, Charon approached Code:Blue with a request.

"I really, really need to use the 'fresher."

"Marinesca, where is the refresher?"

The woman pointed to the door on the other end of the hall.

"Aaah...of course!"

…

**_Sacorrata, Sacorria_**

Six more hours have passed by. Tendra and Doria were now sitting in front of the doors with about forty other teenagers behind them. One group appeared to be fans of SWS and another group was clearly into Deeply Religious. The latter were less chatty – they kept to themselves. It was getting unbearably hot.

"Tendra!" somebody yelled from across the field, having spotted her red shirt. The girls turned around to see four of Tendra's friends who rode in the landcar with her the afternoon after graduation. "Oh…and Doria, Doria Vorr out of all people is with you. How did that happen?"

"Doria was so kind to give me a spare ticket, so I could see…"

"Yeah, we know. Your Aaaantonio!" one of the boys made an impression of a man flipping his long hair and flexing his muscles. "I am still reserved about this. You know, the critics say that Steamy Seconds is a flop."

"Why is it a flop?" Tendra was almost angry. "Some songs on it are great!"

"SexySpiceStarSinners was better." The other teenage boy, whom Doria recognised as the one who was rude to her about Jax Novo the other day, lifted two thumbs up. "Mencuri was on it. The great one himself."

"Dak, Dak, Dak!" Tendra raised her voice."Why don't you be progressive and let go of the past? Mencuri probably perished by now! But...Sassvar Graba is almost as hot as Antonio! And he is...alive, too."

"The Zabrak? He looks like a pimp. He looks like one of those men who like Twi'lek slave girls. And..."

"Like you don't, Dak?" Tendra pouted and got up, her arms on her waist. "Why do you blame him for what all men clearly do?"

The young man looked up. "What does he have that I don't?" He took his yellow shirt off and threw it to Doria. "Here, hold this. I am going to spend the whole evening topless, to show you that anybody and everybody can be like Antonio or Sassvar."

Tendra was about to say something, but he cut her short. She turned around and headed to the refreshment booth, where a waitress droid was waiting to serve her.

"And do not remind me that this is punishable by law!" Dak yelled after her. "If they come after me at any point, I'll know who betrayed me. Jhorn Risant's perfect, squeaky-clean daughter!"

He sat down next to Doria, took out his datapad and, moments later, the familiar, mellow quetarra intro to Underlevels got her eyes glued to the screen, again. She leaned over his shoulder.

"Are you trying to sniff me, weirdo?" Dak leaned to the other side. "Or are you into the annoying Nokaarbe, as if that annoying Jax Novo was not enough?"

"N-no. I...like the music. I really do. Can I see any other holovid from SexySpice...?"

"You don't even know the name of the album. Incredible." He turned the tablet away from her.

"Dak…and what if I say that I don't care about Antonio and Sassvar?"

"Ugh. Okay." Dak found another holovideo. "This is_ Take It With You_. It was recorded on Tatooine, wherever that may be. Looks like a desert planet. I…I love this band for doing things in places nobody has and nobody will ever hear of."

…

**_Curheg, Sacorria_**

Twenty or so minutes after he left the group, Charon came back. Code:Blue, who was now entertaining the guests by having them pretend they were droids working on the production line, ran to him immediately.

"Is everything progressive, comrade Valorum?"

"Yes. You have really, really nice 'freshers here. They almost smell like those pretty flowers!"

"Of course, comrade Valorum! Sacorrian Iris is Curheg's number two brand and our refreshers indeed smell of it."

"And that lovely scent completely masked the odour of the vile, huge, crispy poodoo I just took. That said, I'm sorry, I almost clogged the duct!"

"Poodoo, poodoo!" Koobs raised his trunk. "Great work, pal! But you're yet to top me!"

Code:Blue nearly broke into another round of "of course", but he changed his mind this time. There was something strange about Deeply Religious, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.


	9. Somebody Knows

Laoda Kaeni led her curly-haired visitor to Taliore's kitchen, located behind a large and empty dining room. The girl had a look around. The Durasteel elements were almost glistening. Everything seemed clean and the unmistakable stench of rotten food common to small hotels in backwater towns was suspiciously absent. Having seen that Taliore was nowhere as luxurious as most other seaside hotels, she was slightly confused.

"Aren't you cooking for your visitors?" she asked Laoda.

"I, cooks? Ha. That take away too much time. If they wants to eat, there restaurant on the beach, about two, three hundred metres away. I cooks them Hoth chocolate or makes them a toasted sandwich with whatever I has on hand. Cooking would requires having more staff. I cannot possibly hires anybody else right now."

"I really like a good slice of bread with pretty much anything, so I may have to ask you to make me one of those sandwiches when we're done with this."

"Okieday. Today I has nerf ham."

_Okieday_? That expression did not sound very Vagranite. The girl had heard that word before, but she could not remember where, or how. Maybe it was in one of the many holodocumentaries she had seen before she chose her current path. She shrugged and followed Laoda through the doors of the largest food conservator, as if that was the most common thing known to man. She had seen so many secret passages before, to the point where she swore she knew how to find them in almost every single place.

"You young people, constantly messings with datapads." Laoda objected, pointing to the device in the girl's hand.

"You are right. I will put that down."

The spiral staircase, very similar to the one leading to the first and second floor, led the two women underground.

"Knows how I saids I knows somebody you needed to talks to? Well, I lieds. There two of them!"

The girl was puzzled. She did hear the rumours of a Selonian slave having posed as a Stormtrooper and supposedly being eaten by the notorious burping Sarlacc, so it could not have been him. At this point, she was sure that Laoda was hiding a political prisoner from Force-knows-where in the Galaxy. Or two of them.

The catacombs led them to a small cave, likely above the sea, since the sound of waves hitting was pretty loud. The cave had been converted into a very simple apartment.

"Wakes up, friends." Laoda clapped her hands. "You has a visitor."

A Selonian male in yellow trousers got up and grabbed a blaster. The being who was sharing the underground space with him was still snoring, under a light blanket.

"I apologise. I always take my blaster out now that I have one again. My name is Soleo and that would be…"

Just as Soleo said that, his roommate jumped out of the bunk, screaming, with the blanket still covering his head. "My no wanten be executed! My innocent!" He looked at the mirror and screamed again. "Eeeek, mooie scary monster! Waiten…it's mesa!"

Soleo shook his head and went to help his friend remove the blanket. The girl did not get over the shock of the Selonian slave being alive, and now, right before her, there stood an important figure of recent Galactic history – Jar Jar Binks.

"Calm down, Master Binks!" She went up to him and patted him on the shoulder. "I am not here to hurt you or betray you. I know you have been hiding for quite a while and…I wouldn't want to be you right now."

Jar Jar nodded and shook hands with the visitor. There were days he didn't want to be himself either, particularly those before Soleo joined him in his little hideout. He had been on the run from a couple of months after the Battle of Yavin, ever since the day he saw the woman who killed Commodex Tahn.

"I am here to listen to your story. Soleo's, too, but I hope he won't mind that you'll go first."

"I won't, of course. Not that there is much to my story, either way. A malcontent Selonian sick of being breeding stock for a Queen was lured into promise of a different life and ended up stunned on a slave transport ship. You've heard it all before, right?"

The girl nodded, but sat closer to Soleo and hugged him, regardless.

"No story of suffering and deception is less important than any other."

"I will brings you those sandwiches…" Laoda headed towards the secret passage again. "It looks like it's going to be a long night!" She stopped for a moment. "Yes, Jar Jar, I brings you things that nobody else would eat, not even for a 100 000-credit bet. No worries."

Jar Jar, who was nervously walking around the hideout, finally sat down next to the girl and Soleo.

"Yousa no tellen me yousa name." He scratched one of his eye stalks. "My refuse to talken, if yousa no tellen me yousa name."

"Oh, silly me. I have many names. I play many games. I'm on the run, but what you need to know is that I work for the Alliance to Restore the Republic, that I'm from Aurea and that my name is Deeina Ferry. And I am here to get you out of this mess, but it will be risky."

"Pleased to meeten yousa, Deeina."

"So, what do you know? We are going to find the location of the second Death Star, so I assume there is something else. Otherwise, I just got myself into even more trouble for no reason."

Jar Jar took a deep breath. "The woman was with two machineeks…and she talked to one of them, he was muy scary! Mesa still scared!"

"Sounds like that notorious assassin droid who looks like a protocol droid," Deeina thought to herself. "And what did she say?"

"Deysa…could not believen that Anakin Skywalker had a son and that mistress Padmé was the mother. And then…my remembered that mistress Padmé's pregnant stomach was too big for a single babby!"

"Oh…my." Deeina sat down.

…

/ Seamadeofglass: Blasetreegoatau chat session started at 2000 GST. FAILURE TO FETCH DATE :: WEAK SIGNAL. REPORT TO support /

Seamadeofglass: prog!

Seamadeofglass: u ther?

BlasetreegoatAU: hai…bit bizi, but I can talk. W have u been?

Seamadeofglass: long story. moving to vagran f. university. very sun.

BlasetreegoatAU: get out of here! that good good news.

/ BlasetreegoatAU sets off fete fireworks for Seamadeofglass. /

Seamadeofglass: yup, but gredda…she went away this morning. i wont even get to say gbye. aparentli she got an important job related to the centerpoint station or something. :/

/ Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel /

BlasetreegoatAU: giv me sum time. slower.

Seamadeofglass: wut iz going on w/u?

BlasetreegoatAU: bizi…i m tell u one dai…or not.

Seamadeofglass: wai? u, outta all beings kriffin mi mind!

BlasetreegoatAU: g2 go…sori.

/ BlasetreegoatAU has left the conversation. /

Seamadeofglass: prog?

Seamadeofglass: prog?

/ Seamadeofglass shakes the screen, like a Rebel /

Seamadeofglass: kriff u!

Doria was close to throwing her datapad in the grass. Her mysterious HyperYak friend never acted like this before. And in a situation like this, she really wanted somebody to talk to, since Gredda was no longer responding to her calls. She had been the first person to get onto the field, the first person to grab the metal barrier and save a place for Tendra and the four boys at the very centre of the stage, yet nobody thanked her for it. For the past two hours, she and Tendra had been standing there, leaning on the barrier, with Dak to Doria's right. He had originally been standing next to Tendra, but for reasons he could not determine, the girls had switched places. He was trying to catch Tendra's eye, but at this point she was outright ignoring him.

"I am going to bring us some food." Tendra nudged Doria. "I hope you're hungry, because I am."

"I am, but I have to wait until the dinner at Duchess Branna's place…if there's anything left by the time this is over. Mom didn't give me any credits today."

Tendra frowned at even the thought of Maris. "Silly woman, your mother. Did she expect you to go without food and water all day? Anyway, even if you had credits, this would be on me."

"Hey Tendra, bring me a Hoth chocolate." Dak turned to the girls, flexing his muscles, imitating Antonio Nokaarbe. "I read in Galaxy Watch that it's a...love potion."

"Then go and get your own." Tendra held her head up high and headed to the nearest food booth. Doria sat down, making sure to save her friend's place. The four boys sat down, too. She notice Dak winking to the rest.

"Great. She's ignoring me again." He said to one of his friends. "Jan, are you even listening to me?"

Jan patted Dak on the shoulder. "That's the way it is. The wicked witches are always available." He looked Doria's way for a moment, or so she thought. "And the true catch never wants to look your way. How dare she torture you after you…after you put so much effort into impressing her?"

"I…I signed up to the special defence forces to get my body to look like this. I wanted to take her to the Young Progressive Alliance party after this." Dak threw the yellow T-shirt he was carrying to the ground and trampled it. "And she said no. She always says no. Kriffin' no, no matter what I do!"

"Women suck, my comrade…they suck a lot." Jan concluded. "Also, you seem to hate clothing. Keep on trying, maybe one day she will realise you're actually…reachable, while Nokaarbe is not."

Doria was doing her best to make it like they were not insulting her sort-of-friend in her presence, but it was getting more and more uncomfortable. She then decided to cut them short, somehow.

"Dak, I was wondering something. Could you give me that yellow T-shirt if you don't want to wear it? It's warmer than it was and…"

He stopped her before she could finish the sentence and threw the shirt in her face.

"Alright, alright, blabbermouth. Just make sure you change somewhere where I don't have to look at your horrible stormie helmets."

Doria shrugged and covered up with Tendra's "ANTONIO, I LOVE YOU" banner to change underneath it. This was not the first time somebody spoke to her this way. And what were "stormie helmets", anyway?


End file.
